NOTE: this is part of an ongoing series of posts about my journey with prostate cancer. So far the posts include:
1. January 30: “When Cancer Comes Calling”
2. February 16 – “Waiting in Mutual Ambush”
3. March 11 – “My Prostate is History” (on the surgery)
4. March 13 – “Letters Before Surgery” (saying goodbyes)
5. March 14 – “Cancer Prognosis: Uncertain Grace”
6. March 22 – “Post-Surgery Incontinence”

Waiting in Mutual Ambush: Cancer and Me
David R. Weiss – February 16, 2025

I cannot begin to say how much it has meant to me that so many people have reached out with words and gestures of genuine care upon learning of my cancer diagnosis. And a good number have checked in since then to ask how I’m doing.

In a word: FINE. I have no pain, no discomfort, no symptoms at all. Were it not for a PSA number that rose way beyond its business, an MRI that spied a small gathering of abnormal-looking cells on the left side of my prostate, and a biopsy that took seventeen tiny samples from my innards and found nine of them cancer-ridden—were it not for these things, I’d have no idea of the mayhem-in-the-making … in me.

Thus, fine, except for that.

Fortunately(?!), my dad’s misfortune (broken neck and ensuing medical drama) has meant that even that is mostly submerged beneath the immediacy of his needs these days. Needs that range from direct physical care, navigating the medical-insurance maze, and simple companionship.

So, it’s altogether a rare moment that I have the leisure to contemplate that in each passing heartbeat some millions(?) of cancer cells, fed by my beating heart, are readying themselves to wreak havoc on my bodily systems near and far, from lymph nodes to lungs and liver, from bones to brain. Pervasive, aggressive, and silent, they’re counting on stillness to be their ally.

But stillness is also my game. Even while they imagine themselves marauding across me—an invasive species in an ecosystem of species (my entire biotic community, the plurality of me!, is under threat)—I am patiently waiting in mutual ambush for them.

Until March 5. The length of my stillness set in part by the need for my rectum—pierced seventeen times during our reconnaissance on January 10 to sample cells from my prostate (my biopsy)—to heal fully. Tiny punctures, but when my urologist proposed a fecal-free surgery I was quick to agree. Still, that biopsy offers a metaphor for life itself: sometimes you go through shit to learn the truth. Yep.

There is nothing for me to do right now except be still. Well, also: stay calm, breathe deep, cultivate gratitude, nurture relationships, do good, and, of course, fight the unfolding fascism in our nation. Geez.

But on March 5, around 8am, that stillness … stops. I’ll be put under general anesthetic—a deeper stillness yet—and undergo a Robot-Assisted-Radical-Prostatectomy.

That is, while I am stilled and while these millions of rogue cells remain as yet bivouacked in my prostate, they will be surrounded by something out of a Transformers flick. Five “keyhole” incisions will grant access to a suite of precision robotic instruments: something like an elite team of smokejumpers inserted to contain a wildfire about to burst from my prostate outward. The first set of probes will inflate, illumine, and image (in 3D, no less) my insides, so that the next set of tools can peel back and hold aside other organs, snip with (dare we say, sex-saving?) precision the bad from the good, bag for removal my cancerous prostate and some adjacent lymph nodes, and then deftly s-t-r-e-t-c-h and stitch my urethra over a catheter and back to my bladder. Oof.

To be clear, those robot instruments borrow their agency from my urologist, guiding them with wisdom and skill. And my own stillness will be cared for by a team at the surgery table. And by Margaret and others afterwards. Another life truth: few battles are fought entirely on our own, and often our fiercest battles involve trusting ourselves to the care of others. My job is to be the stillness.

Seventeen days to my surgery. Sure, I’m a little bit anxious. But mostly, I’m fine. Stillness is my game.

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POSTSCRIPT: Please don’t read my words as making light of cancer. I have dear friends who have had harrowing journeys with cancer—some ending in death. I am well aware that my own journey may take a harrowing turn before it’s over. But people ask me, “how are you doing now”—and, indeed, the present moment is where we all dwell. And right now, in this present moment I am fine.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.