Autism Diagnosis at 60

I am autistic. Under DSM IV I'd probably be considered to have Asperger's Syndrome, but I was diagnosed under DSM V at age 60, so I have Autism Spectrum Disorder. I have thought about posting something for several years, but am only getting around to it for this April's Autism Awareness Month.

Health status update

The CT scan showed no sign of spread to the pelvic lymph nodes, but there are a couple of minor things with almost certainly no connection to prostate cancer. Surgery may be a little earlier, May instead of June (yays!), but there's no date set yet.

CT Scan

This afternoon I had a CT scan in the basement of Hotel Dieu to check whether my prostate cancer has spread to my pelvic lymph nodes. Like the bone scan, it's unlikely they'll find anything, but they wanted to verify before starting treatment.

A Firehose of Information

Yesterday Margaret and I spent nearly four hours at the Cancer Centre in the Burr Wing of Kingston General hospital, talking with both a radiation oncologist and a surgeon, regarding treatment for my prostate cancer. The bone scan last Friday showed that there was no metastasis; if today's CT scan of my lymph nodes similarly shows no problems, I'll be having surgery, likely in early June.

Bone scan

This is one of the Discovery NM/CT 670 SPECT/CT machines at Kingston General Hospital. It's a combination of a gamma ray camera (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) and CT scanner (also Computed Tomography, repeated because there are two parts to the machine). I had a bone scan this morning, and found the technology fascinating.

Reflections on NaNoWriMo 2017

I participated in National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) last year and "won" at 50,808 words.  However, that's a number that needs some commentary.

Cancer Diagnosis

Yesterday I found out I have prostate cancer. This is my reflections on the diagnosis, my reactions, and my experience getting to this point.