Part of my job and my joy as a pastor has been to visit and connect with older people in the nursing homes. The majority of nursing home residents are females because they tend to live longer, and because men are often too stubborn to give up their independence until it is taken from them. So I try to connect with the men in those places especially. And I’ve been the only visitor for some of them.

Now that I’m where I am with this prostate cancer I am reminded of the many older men I have visited with serious limitations due to their enlarged prostates. I remember one older member of our church who couldn’t control his bladder and his pants were always wet. Another aged farmer I befriended spent his time suffering because he could not urinate (day after day).

As I recall those experiences, I’m thinking that it may not be such a horrifying thing to have my prostate removed after all. Perhaps those future problems I might have to face will not become a reality at all for me as a side effect of this cancer. Maybe more than one good thing will come out of this.

I’d like to know what good things have you seen in your own life that were a side effect of a bad thing.

Tags: aging, nursing home, side effect