A rhetorical question

[thcbongman]

Let's say you had a choice. You can live for perhaps 3-5 more years, flame out and most likely die, but at least those 3-5 years you can live normally, mentally and physically pain-free.

Or you have surgery, but you end up ejaculating backwards into your bladder, or possibly losing that ability for the rest of your life. Not fathering any children the old fashion way. You have to live with a huge scar that goes up from your pubic area to your upper abdominen, all those times working-out become pointless. Recovering from the hospital again, all the pain that will be faced. All this to remove some potentially cancerous tissue to make sure it doesn't come back. Not to mention all that time spent recovering.

If you could possibly imagine choosing between two hells, which would you pick?

I'm heavily considering opting out of surgery, and let nature take it's course. If you can't live to the fullest, why live?

[nikweiser]

i am sorry i cant be faced to come to some kind of answer to this, i dont even know how to respond. i love you thcbongman

[thcbongman]

Thank you for the love nikweiser. :)

It's a dilemma no one would want to face or think about because it's so detrimental to imagine. I'm just the unlucky one that does. I already been through hell, and done everything to overcome it. I worked myself back into shape, I'm almost back into the shape I was before I got cancer.. I just don't want to go through it again, and lose more than I have to gain. I can't live a sedentary lifestyle again. I simply can't. I want in the future to father a child normally, and not through artifical imsemination. Who the hell would want to cum backwards into your bladder, jesus. I'll be a freak of nature, and no woman with the right mind would ever want to settle down with me. I really suck at life :)

That's why just living 3-5 years as normal as I can be sounds great to me, even tho opting out of surgery is writing my death sentence.

Sorry for being such a downer, but I had to rant and be a little emo.

[40oz]

What about your family and friends?

[Weedhound]

My first thought would be that if you had that 3-5 years to pretty do whatever you wanted that it would not be enough time to build what you want which is fatherhood and family.

You mentioned not having children the "old fashioned way." How important to you is having children....any way? I'm not trying to be snotty here, I'm just trying to get an idea of where your priorities are in the scheme of things. You have children normally and perhaps share a year or two of their lives or....?

Then there is the matter of making each day worth living....you have already said you will not do the sedentary life again. I understand what you mean by that....minutes become hours and days when all you can do is barely slog through and it you are not even sure if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Have you spoken to people who have tried these choices and heard both sides of each option? No one really knows except those who have been there.

I wish you the best of luck.....and will be curious as to which option you choose. Take Care

PS I'm afraid I don't have an answer to your question.

[thcbongman]

Family of family in what terms? Do they want me to do surgery? They all want me to do surgery. No question about it. They're bias with their love for me and want me to live long as possible.

[thcbongman]

My first thought would be that if you had that 3-5 years to pretty do whatever you wanted that it would not be enough time to build what you want which is fatherhood and family.

You mentioned not having children the "old fashioned way." How important to you is having children....any way? I'm not trying to be snotty here, I'm just trying to get an idea of where your priorities are in the scheme of things. You have children normally and perhaps share a year or two of their lives or....?

Then there is the matter of making each day worth living....you have already said you will not do the sedentary life again. I understand what you mean by that....minutes become hours and days when all you can do is barely slog through and it you are not even sure if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Have you spoken to people who have tried these choices and heard both sides of each option? No one really knows except those who have been there.

I wish you the best of luck.....and will be curious as to which option you choose. Take Care

PS I'm afraid I don't have an answer to your question.

Having children down the road is very important to me. I have a dynasty to continue as silly as it sounds. I'm number IV, it's something I have to continue. But I guess I can't do it either way, I can't be that selfish to die on them.

It's kinda like, you already been through hell once, you become helpless, you can't do things you enjoy. I'm past that, I can function the way I want to, I'm happy as I ever been, I love life. I don't want to change back to that period I want to forget. Chemotherapy was hell, I already lost 8 months of my life to this disease, just when you see the light, it's taken away again. Makes me want to cry, but I can't because I don't want to be weak.

The surgery is basically removing dead cancer tissue around my kidney. Very complex surgery that comes with a lot of risks, my urologist told me it's a necessity if I want to live in the long-run. I spoken to others, and read about what would happen if I didn't do surgery. Almost everyone in that situation got cancer again within 3-5 years.

And thank you for listening.

[nikweiser]

get right to work on having a kid now.. and you can still have that operation, and still father a child without having to artificially inseminate a girl.
then you have your child, and you dont have to worry about not being able to have one...

its just a thought i dont know if you have thought about it or if it contradicts anything... just trying to help out with what i can

[thcbongman]

That's not a bad idea...... :) I wish I was italian.

[Weedhound]

So based on what you have said there I am guessing you mean that those who have had the surgery only bought another couple of years and did not win the brass ring of "living the long run." Will this surgery give you the possibility of accomplishing this by itself or is it a procedure borne of complications that now need to be corrected? And how much of a betting man are you?

In regards to children---I will add one thing here that may or may not be interesting to you. I am an adopted child.....I couldn't tell you if I was born from AI, the virgin mother or whatever and it doesn't bother me really (of course I wonder but...) What does stick out in my mind is the parents who were there for me day after day as I was growing up; as is the family who loves you now and wants you around for a long time.

What I am seeing from your writing is that children etc is your ray of hope here. If you were to go the surgery route, and were able to have kids (lots of maybes in there) that type of future could go a long way against the day to day blackness.

To me the question comes back to this: How much of a betting man are you?

One last thing: yeah it's neat-o to be strong etc but your problems are there whether you are strong or weak. And sometimes, letting yourself be weak for awhile and using the support from others can help you be strong at times when you really need it.

[birdgirl73]

I don't think I can be objective with this question, THCBongman. I have a 20-year-old son, and if he were facing the same situation you are, I'd be on my knees, begging and pleading with him to have the surgery. I also think it's hard for a woman to be able to really address this area anyway, but as a mom, I see why your family wants you to have it. I know you've been through hell. There's no guarantee, of course, that you won't go through hell of some type whether you have it or not. I would just hope that you'd take every chance at living a longer life. I'm so sorry you're faced with this.

[Stoner Shadow Wolf]

i am a firm believe in nature and letting it take it's course, i do not completely agree with medicine, however, natural treatment, and mind over matter are tolerable. pharmaceuticals, and surgery, in my opinion, are an abomination of nature.

[birdgirl73]

i am a firm believe in nature and letting it take it's course, i do not completely agree with medicine, however, natural treatment, and mind over matter are tolerable. pharmaceuticals, and surgery, in my opinion, are an abomination of nature.
So would you elect, then, not to have surgery or, say, antibiotics if you had a ruptured appendix? Or a surgically curable form or cancer? Or a surgically removable brain tumor that, without surgery, would kill you but with surgery would allow you to live out your natural lifespan? You would object to unnatural abominations and take an untested natural approach over one that could certainly cure you? (Here I'm not saying THCBongman is facing a certain cure in his case, but there are plenty of cases where certain cures are sure things, and he knows his chances are much greater if he does have this surgery.) This sort of logic always astounds me when I read it.

[Stoner Shadow Wolf]

only for myself, i believe in respecting the free will of others.


although i already had my appendix removed, there's nothing i can do to change that... and it was before i really formed any opinions on the matter.


and as for your natural lifespan, if you have a curable but deadly disease, your natural lifespan is reduced. curing disease lets us live an unnatural lifespan. i vouch for natural selection, but i wont enforce that on anyone but myself.


though, if friends and/or family cannot cope with losing me, i will gladly put their feelings ahead of my own. no sense in complete arrogance.

[Dave Byrd]

OK, speaking as a physician in circulatory medicine and an older man than you are, I gotta tell you that, from a medical perspective, normal sexual function isnt a guarantee to anyone, no matter what their medical history. So you can fall on your sword of nobility and choose to not have surgery and live only three or four more years in what you think is going to be a functional state (and what you think is going to be a functional state when you're past 40 is a lot different from what your imagination is now, most likely), or you can have surgery and live longer than if you tanked within four years and have whatever sexual function is granted to you, which is how it's going to be anyway as you age unless you're compulsive about your circulatory health.

My point is it comes down to whether you want to die sooner than later. Sexual function tends to decline as men get older. And wives and girlfriends are a lot more likely to overlook problems in that area, anyway. What's a big deal to you isn't always a big thing to them. They're about a lot more than how the sex is. They care about how the relationship is.

You're going to get suffering either way. Don't kid yourself. If you have the surgery now and have to face that recovery, sure, you're going to have pain and recovery and potential changes. But you will recover and get the chance to live a longer life, father kids (even it it's through artificial insem), feel the sensation of orgasm, and see what middle and older age is like. You know that's what's more likely.

But if you choose not to have the surgery and let the cancer take its course, you're going to endure suffering a lot sooner. Not pretty, heroic, noble suffering. Miserable, painful, early suffering. I just watched my sister inlaw die three months ago. It's not pretty. You may have a pleasant period before then, but that's what it'll be, a temporary period.

So I hope that makes sense. I may have been a little blunt, but that's how I am.

[Weedhound]

Wow, Go Dave!

[Knucklecallus420]

kills my heart

[thcbongman]

Well, reading what you guys had to say, thank you BG, Dave, and Weedhound for your perspectives and advice. I guess you knocked a little sense into me. Somehow Lance Armstrong won 7 Tour de France, which is pretty amazing, so life afterwards can't all that bad. I'm leaning towards surgery, although something I don't want to fantom.

I guess what moved me most was reading Xcrispi's post about his explosion. We each suffer in our ways, and my life could be much worse, but it's pretty damn good, despite all this. Thank you guys.

[Blazed and Confused]

Think about it, you are contemplating opting out of surgery to avoid the hassles treatment and recovery. If you do so, you said you will most likely get cancer in 3-5 years, at which point you will need chemo and other treatments. So you are just delaying the inevitable.

[mfqr]

Think about it, you are contemplating opting out of surgery to avoid the hassles treatment and recovery. If you do so, you said you will most likely get cancer in 3-5 years, at which point you will need chemo and other treatments. So you are just delaying the inevitable.

No, he says he would want to live out his life without that hassle. That is the point--go through surgery, or don't. This means he wouldn't go through chemo as well. I don't really know what to say to you, thcbongman. Personally I think I would just live the rest of my life to the fullest. But I don't know if I should suggest that either. It's a very hard decision, dude.

[indicagrower]

for starters cumming back into your bladder is a minor detail...speaking from experience..I am not a cancer patient but i was pun into a wheelchair at the ripe old age of 18.i amd 32 now.I had my whole life ahead of me then one night in a split second boom, crippled for life...so i say to you there are worse problem than a little surgery pain and not being able to father children the old fasion way..if you truly want a child and family then i say to you get over yourself and do what your gonna do...i got married 5 years ago..we now have a beautiful baby girl and life is grand...i look back at the day's i stuck my pistol in my mouth and think what the hell was i thinking.....nothing personal against anyone...not tring to step on toes just my opion

[peaceandlove420]

I was just pondering the entitling of a thread "rhetorical question". Good stuff.

[Weedhound]

God the people on this forum are amazing! Love you guys!

[Frivolous248]

I think you mean "a hypothetical question"

rhetorical means you don't want it answered.

[Delta9 UK]

Surgery do it!

You never know, it might work out 100% fine without any long term complications - fit mind and strong spirit will win you the day.

Don't let cancer beat you, its a mindless creeping fuckup of a disease and you are a fine human being - no contest.