Bob & Ron - What Really Matters

Thoughts on Surviving Prostate Cancer It has been sixteen months since my meeting with da Vinci  the robot who extracted my cancerous prostate and the detour of a lifetime. Three PSA tests laer and the cancer is undetectable with another test in September (Prostate Cancer month). A year ago I wondered whether I’d see my 70th birthday and a bucket list goal of attending the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in June with a close friend with whom I had attended the Open at Pebble Beach nine years prior,and  the Olympic Club in San Francisco. I was told that I had a 95% chance of living for ten years (80), and slightly less to 85 . Of course, I’ll never be cancer free and something else may terminate my time on this earth. Well, I did go to the U.S. Open, started playing Pickleball iand jumpstarted my golf game. I am an advocate for ProstateCancer.net contributing articles and moderating their Facebook Forums. I am active in my parish Knights of Columbus Council too. ...

In my book  The Prostate Chronicles - A Medical Memoir  I paid homage to a sport that helped me thread the eye of the needle on my journey with prostate cancer.   According to Wikipedia, “Pickleball is a paddle sport that combines elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis. Two or four players use solid paddles made of wood or composite materials to hit a perforated polymer ball, similar to a Whiffle Ball, over a net. “ Congressman Joel Pritchard, Barney McCallum, and Bill Bell invented the game of pickleball one summer afternoon in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, WA. It’s a racket sport on a smaller court than a tennis court.   OK, OK what’s with the name? It’s a simple explanation. The Pritchards had a cocker spaniel named Pickles, who became interested in this new game. Whenever a ball would come his way, he would take the ball and run off with it, because you see, it was Pickle's ball. And that is how the game got its name. And the USA Pickle...

Thanksgiving, surviving  cancer, and loss:  what really matters. "A man was found in his apartment three years after his death – and what it can teach us about loneliness" Editorial in The Dallas Morning News, 11/23/2018 As Ron and I charge into our eighth decade (our 70s), having suffered loss (Ron's beloved Michelle and my surviving prostate cancer (so far)), I was shocked to read an article about a man found dead in his apartment after his death, three years ago. Yes, it's 2019, an era of all forms of communications, yet nobody, including this man's mother, knew that something was amiss. The man died alone at the age of fifty one!  As an advocate for prostate cancer  Learn More , and a survivor myself, I know how lonely one feels when diagnosed with prostate cancer. When both Karen and I were patients and caregivers following my surgery and her near-fatal fall at the hospital, our neighbors, my parish, fraternity brothers, and family embr...

Words of wisdom by Rich Bevan-Thomas, MD my surgeon who graciously wrote this foreword to my book    The Prostate Chronicles - A Medical Memoir  . Dr. Bevan-Thomas addresses the challenges faced by men diagnosed with prostate cancer. When Bob told me he was writing a book on prostate cancer during a recent appointment at my clinic, I paused for a minute. I prepared myself for another “Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers” book. Then he asked me to write the foreword for the book. This was definitely getting awkward. Fortunately, Bob continued on about why he wrote the book and how he was a   contributor to several online prostate cancer forums. My interest piqued and after reading the book, I agreed to write this foreword. Bob has written a memoir of his prostate cancer experience that I think many readers will enjoy. Bob’s witty comments like “your mileage may vary” and his reference to “life’s runway” brings in his sense of humor of how he handled ...

In our book,  Letters in a Helmet , Bob and I write about the power of brotherhood. Of course, we  included the stories of our wives who, for both of us, are the underpinnings of our lives. This is a short tale of the brotherhood I used to build my wife's castle. The Puzzle The truth is, blueprints are an architect's dream. I had some, but we had to bend and rework his plans to turn our puzzle pieces into a castle. The plan was to dig the footers after Colorado's high country unfroze in June, but you know how that goes, right? Plan approvals, permits, blah, blah, we didn't have the slab poured and the sole plates ready until October.  I was doubling the size of our old log house by surrounding three sides of it with big rooms, using huge structural insulated panels (SIPs). These panels are made of 12" slabs of styrofoam sandwiched between panels of oriented strand board (OSB). Of course, it warmed up and snowed the day before this photo was taken. Then the...

JFK's Gravesite and Eternal Flame, Arlington November 22, 1963 Where was I? I was in math class, a junior in high school, waiting for the teacher to assign us homework so we could leave. A student with a fist full of notes walked in, gave one to the teacher and left. That was odd. He read it in silence, as we watched him, curious. He looked shocked. He adjusted his glasses and read the note to us: "President Kennedy has been shot today in Dallas. He has been pronounced dead. School is canceled for the rest of the day." For decades after that, it was a common question, "Where were you when JFK died?" It was a question, like this one, "Where were you on 9-11?" What usually ensued was a dialogue centered on another, bigger question: "How are we supposed to deal with the fact that no one can breathe?" There was life before that day and life after. America had had a firm grasp on its successful reality, then a single event destroyed t...

In our book, Letters in a Helmet , Bob and I describe Randy Morrison , a beloved fraternity brother of ours. Our chapter recently had a reunion at Oklahoma University and Randy was often remembered , as "a gentle soul." He was the only member of our house to die in Vietnam. I'm writing about him because I used his story today to educate my two grandsons about how they must learn, instead of running from scary things, to face them, to stand up and deal with them. Honor, toughness, grit. Randy's name appears in gold on OU's memorial to those graduates who've given their lives in service. Our fraternity brothers, now gray, see his name often on the way to Sooner stadium. Of course, his name is also engraved on The Wall in D.C. I remember the times I've found myself in awful, dangerous situations. I served in the Infantry in Vietnam. I was an Army company commander and each of my platoons had a medic. Their mere presence was enough to set men'...

What Connects Us Today? Fraternity, Brotherhood, and the Oklahoma Sooners! Bob Tierno In our book  Letters In A Helmet A Story Of Fraternity and Brothehood  Ron Sorter and I discuss our lives over five decades since we first met as Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity brothers at Oklahoma University. We touch on the importance of Oklahoma Football and we are loyal Sooners to this day. Every Saturday that the Sooners take the field, brothers Fred, RJ, Rich, Dennis, George, and I text the first thing in the morning "Boomer!" and as if on queue each responds "Sooner!"   Last night (11/16/19) the Baylor Bears went into halftime with a 31-10 lead. The texts went like this. The contributor will remain anonymous. "Lets Go Big Red" "Defense, Defense! "For the love of God, tackle somebody!" "Lincoln Riley has lost the team?" "2018 Defense Redux" "We suck!" "Well, we are bowl eligible" " Alamo Bo...

Is it art? You tell me. I used to think art took a mature mind, a sharp eye, a considered approach. Then I met my future brotherhood  and it changed everything. That's right, my mature friends, I 'm going to brag on my grandkids. Sure, great art usually looks like something. Like this piano. You know, paint, applied with a brush, using colors on a palette, like that. In my previous life, I picked up the habit myself, just to get my mind off of an ever-present to- do list . This unknown artist is one of many, in my hometown, who took part in a "Keying Around in Sequim" piano-painting contest. Tigers don't have blue eyes. But I think I may know why this tiger does.  Stare at a red tomato for a minute. Remove it and stare at the afterimage. You still see the tomato, but it's chrome green, the complement of red. This effect is called   optical scintillation . Our brain enjoys it when that happens because it's harmonious. Yep, blue is the comp...

I was in a creative writing class one time, in graduate school, listening to a 24-year-old girl read her story to the class about what it had been like to lose her virginity in the back seat of her boyfriend’s Buick. Well, actually she wasn’t a girl anymore. She was pregnant, but she was 20 years younger than I was. I felt like some dad, listening to his daughter tell me something I definitely didn’t want to know.   Let me back up for a minute. I was in San Diego State University’s graduate school, studying for a master of science in business, specializing in AI and robotics. The admissions office had nicely told me my Oklahoma University degree was worthless since it was over ten years old and I'd have to take a bunch more beginner classes than I’d expected. Here I was in my one elective. I told people I thought my one elective, this creative writing class, would help me write a decent thesis. The truth was, it was more entertaining and mostly; I was glad I didn’t have to...

Dynamic Cynicism In my book The Prostate Chronicles - A Medical Memoir one of the way's I threaded the eye of the needle dealing with my prostate cancer diagnosis I  subscribed to humor every day. As an advocate for ProstateCancer.ent I wrote about Dynamic Cynicism. Click on the link below to learn more. #prostatecancer #humor #comedy #laughter Learn more about Dynamic Cynicism Subscribe to our blog Subscribe to our Blog

When did you know?   Every handicapped person remembers that moment. You were fine until then. After that, everything was different. Now people look at you differently. You look at yourself differently. What’s to become of you? That’s a really good question. Maybe you need to wear a knee brace for a sports injury or support stockings for your circulation. Perhaps some back issues force you to use a cane, or a wheelchair. Maybe you’ve had several cancerous lesions removed from your face and you have to go back to work tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what your physical condition is, really. If you feel handicapped, if you’re worried about what people will think or say about you now, you’re handicapped. Let me give you my bona fides for talking about this: fifty years ago in Vietnam, I lost my right leg. A booby trap, fabricated from a U.S. Army 81mm mortar round, blew me ten feet across our perimeter. I nearly bled to death but thanks to several medics I survived to reco...