Dodging Bullets And Living Lucky

I waited a day to post this until I had a chance to talk to Veronica about the news from my Urologist appointment. She is currently in Toronto Canada on a business trip and I spoke to her last night.
Yesterday I had my first consultation with my new Urologist.
I liked this Urologist and felt very comfortable talking to him.
The Urologist had all of my previous PSA test results along with a lot of other background medical information on me.
This Urologist ran a urine test which came back clean.
He also did an extensive DRE (Digital Rectal Exam) and believe it or not, he could feel no nodule anywhere in, around or near my prostate. Recently another Urologist and my Family doctor had felt a very small nodule on the right side of my prostate.
Had I stuck with that other Urologist, I would have been having a prostate biopsy by this time.
Sometimes it really pays to have a 3rd or 4th opinion about things, especially when it comes to your health issues.
Because my PSA test numbers had been jumping up over a relatively short period of time, I was put on Cipro, an antibiotic, because family doctor felt that I might have a prostate infection.
This Urologist agreed to that line of treatment.
So where I am at right now is that I will finish taking the Cipro...about 2 more weeks worth at 2x a day and then return to my family doctor for another followup PSA test.
Everyone will confer and hopefully that will be the end to this recent scare.
The only missing piece of the puzzle is the findings from an MRI that I recently had done due to the pain in my right hip and right upper leg. In the MRI findings, there was some mention of my prostate and something was written about prostate concern and having some followup on what was seen on that MRI. Neither this Urologist nor I had the actual findings present during this visit, so he will be obtaining those results.
Although I vaguely remember that something about my prostate was mentioned in those MRI findings, I could not remember in what context those concerns were stated.
Hopefully it won't be anything to worry about and upon doing this next PSA test, my PSA levels will have dropped down to a more normal level and Veronica and I can put an end to this chapter of medical issues.
I consider myself a very lucky person right now.
I have had 3 cancer scares in the last 3-4 years or so.
The first was when I was still smoking cigarettes and a pre-cancerous growth was found on my tongue. I had a biopsy and then after the results, had a portion of my tongue removed. I wrote extensive blog entries as I was going through that rather scary and painful period of time.
The next time was right before Veronica and I went on our Baltic Capitals cruise last year.
I had got an X-Ray done on my right leg and hip...once again due to pain that I was feeling in that area on a daily basis.
I received a telephone call from my family doctor back in Virginia. He was the one that requested the X-ray be done on my leg.
That doctor called and told me that I needed to get with my Oncologist in the near future because the radiologist that had read my hip/leg x-rays felt that I might have bone cancer. These were the words that my doctor was using.
Veronica and I ended up going on our cruise vacation thinking that I might have bone cancer.
Upon returning home from our vacation, I visited my Oncologist and was told that I did not have bone cancer and what the Radiologist had seen on the x-rays was actually the Mast Cell Disease that I had already been diagnosed with a couple of years prior. The Mast Cekll Disease has somewhat of an appearance as bone cancer on the x-rays. My Mast Cell Disease is actually in my bone marrow. This is also why I was seeing an Oncologist to begin with.
And of course the latest scare is with my prostate.
All of these worries and near misses on such medical issues can sure wear a person out..medically, physically and emotionally. And that is not even beginning to mention what loved ones go through during all of this. It can make things tough on everybody.
From where I am sitting, dodging bullets and living lucky are real understatements.
Time to count my blessings.

Kind Of Under The Weather

Not much has been going on around here.
Been doing my workouts daily except for today. I think I caught whatever bug Veronica has had. Just been kind of loafing around today and basically feeling under the weather.
Veronica left today for Toronto on a business trip. She will hopefully be home on Friday. I miss her tons already.
Tomorrow I have a consultation visit with my new Urologist. This is the Urologist that my family doctor recommended.
This is also my consultation before I get scheduled for my prostate biopsy.
Not sure how soon that will be scheduled for but I am sure that I will find out tomorrow during my consultation.
Time to get back into bed and hopefully get over this bug.

Modern Technology For All Of Our Travel Needs

Since Veronica and I have decided that we are going to be doing some serious traveling abroad in the future, we decided to make an investment in our travel plans. It never ceases to amaze me of all of the technology that is out there.

Below is the new "toy" that we purchased...our new Ectaco ITRAVL Talking Translator and Dictionary. This item is so much more than just a translator and talking dictionary. But before getting into what this little gem can do, let's see what came with our package. 

  

 Below is what came with our package deal. There is another stylus and cd that isn't present in the photo. We got 2 different styles of protective covers, an extra rechargeable battery, docking station that you can use when recharging both batteries, AC charger, several different headphones/earphones, a set of world travel adaptors, a couple of language program CDs for the computer, a special C-pen, a free 10 language world translator(the white thing in the photo...plus several other items

 Our unit has 13 languages built into it including English. The languages that are in our unit are: Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish along with English.

Built into this unit are a Dictionary, English Dictionary, Pictured Dictionary, Text Translation from any of the above listed languages into another of the above listed languages, an Audio Phrasebook that covers many highly used phrases from travel, hotel, food/drinks, health/drugstores, shopping, sports/leisure, repairs/laundry, emergencies, in the restaurant and so much more. And each of these sections are covered in all of the languages within this unit.

There is text translation from any language to another that is built into the unit. Just type in the word or sentence and it will translate it into the language requested, which cab be either visually read or verbally spoken to you from the units speaker. There are also language teaching programs within this unit. They have language crossword puzzles and even hangman included in the unit. 

 On the front of the unit, they have what they call "soft buttons" that you can press to move to the next "page" on the units interface. On the 2nd page you can see other things that this unit has built into it. There is a video player, audio player, a jtBook reader, a voice recorder that records notations or anything else you want to record onto the provided 512mb SD card which can be expanded to a 2gb card. Also built in is a Audio Books feature, World Time, CIA World Factbook, Cultural Notes and a Navigation (GSP) feature.

On the 3rd page of this units interface, you have the Extras area. For extras they have an IHelp section, a calculator, a calendar, size equivalents, metric conversion and a Notepad. The IHelp section is really kind of cool for emergency situations....instant communication help. All you do is say a short name for any pre-programmed phrase(s) and you can get an instant translation and voice output in the foreign language that you choose and is built into the system. This gives you emergency communication with doctors or police or any other number of people that you would like to communicate with in an emergency situation.     

To get into any section available, you can either use the stylus provided or you can tap on the screen. The unit is built on a Microsoft Windows CE operating system.  

 Here is the unit in the supplied cradle which you can hook up to you computer or with the provided AC adaptor. There is a spot in the back of the cradle to hold and charge the spare battery. The little bump at the top of the unit is actually a microphone to speak into and the larger circular area at the lower section of the unit is its speaker. Almost everything you can do with this unit is via speaking into it although you can also use the virtual keyboard to type info into the unit.

It has a text to text feature built into it where you type a word or sentence into a box and it translates the writing into whatever language you choose. The same can be done for verbal communication to a point.

 The unit came with built in GPS software for the United States and Canada. Veronica and I also purchased the GPS package that includes both Eastern and Western Europe but does not include Russia. The GPS software has plenty of different options to give you directions and pictures so that you can get where you want to go. It even has a feature where you are almost looking at your map interface from a ground level viewpoint. 

 This unit came with what they call a C-pen. This is a really great feature. The C-pen plugs into the unit at the bottom in the same location as where you would plug the GPS unit in. When you plug the C-pen in, the C-pen interface shows up on the screen...see below photo. What you do is you choose the language that you want to translate into English. Let's say that you are looking at a restaurant menu in Venice Italy and you you don't read or understand any of the Italian written language. You take your C-pen and press the pen down and over the sentence or word that you want the unit to translate into English. The tip of the C-pen lights upon the area that it is acquiring. The Italian text will show up as it is actually written, in the top box on the screen. You then tap or use your stylus to press the "translate" tab and the next thing you know, the sentence on the menu is translated into English in the bottom box section...if that is your chosen language. After translating that sentence, you can either delete it or continue with the translation of any of the sentences that follow after the initial one. This is very helpful on menus because many times the description of the food is written in multiple sentences. You can use this on travel directions that are in a foreign language. There are numerous uses for this pen.I think that this particular feature is really great. I also like the fact that this unit is great for verbal communication either through actually taking into the unit for phrases and such along with typing information, sentences or words and the unit can verbally translate what is written into whatever language you have chosen.

This unit also has teaching software included within the unit to assist in you learning a new language...which ever language you choose from the ones that are built into this unit. There are so many more features that this unit has...too many to mention here.

The purchase of this unit will give Veronica and I the freedom to easily communicate and navigate in many countries that we want to visit. This unit was costly but I think it will be well worth the money as we do more and more traveling. For more information on products from Ectaco, please follow this link...   ECTACO