SILLY SONGS and SATIRE: A Hopeful Lament: "PROSTATE CANCER"

PARODY-LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG: "Love and Marriage", 1955, Cahn and van Heusen, performed by Frank Sinatra, also Peggy Lee and Dinah Shore.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2016. To return to the corresponding post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" (and to see the lyrics without the chord-chart indications) click HERE.

Humor is likely still the best medicine, even for retired physicians.

PROSTATE CANCER

(to the tune of “Love and Marriage”: indentations at beginnings of lines flag the syncopation.)

Strange behavior, prostate cancer
Danger lurking down there in your pants, sir?
Age-effect? guys wondered;
So, “Yes”, you’ll have it at one hunderd.

(bridge)

Most such tumors are just harmless

‘Cancer in situ’ [1]

You’ll kick can from other cause, yet

Con...cept might befright you.

If you’ve got 10 years to squander

These are treatment outcomes you should ponder:

No spread when detected -

Five-year survival’s not affected!

(But) Certain cancers are bad actors

Younger age and bad genes are risk factors

Yet we’ve got the greatest,

For early pick-up: PSA-test [2]

(bridge)

Try set frequency and onset;

Screen to detect’em.

Current guide adds DRE [3] - that’s

.... Finger-up-rectum.

DRE and PSA-test

If they’re worrisome you’ll face the next step

To resolve the issue

Your doc will want to get some tissue.

Cut and cure my prostate cancer?

Ask your Uro, he’ll provide the answer.

Positive biopsy –

Might turn your life-plan turvy-topsy.

Plan for treatment and prognosis

That depends on what your Gleason-score [4] shows

“Six” - equivocation

You might pick watchful expectation.

(bridge)

Sigh! Why try avoid? Decide [5], if

You’ve drawn a “Seven”.

There’s no call for you to bawl

Or .... pack bags for Heaven.

If it’s surg(e)ry, I’d subject me

To a retropubic prostatect(o)my;

Radical excision

Routine or high-tech [6] - your decision.

Kids, I’m betting on the cure–oh!

So I’m heading home to see my Uro

As I told your mother,

“Four decades passed, they went by fast,

Four decades passed, let’s spend ano-o-other.”

Readers are advised to inform themselves to the extent possible, and

then discuss the many issues involved with their health provider. Excellent online material is available at the American Cancer Society website.

[1] cancer 'in place', which has not invaded locally or spread beyond the prostate gland.

[2] Prostate-Specific Antigen; a protein which leaks into the blood at a rate proportional to the activity of prostate cells; frequently used to help detect and monitor cancer.

[3] Digital Rectal Examination by your urologist, or other doctor - not pleasant, but important.

[4] a measure of the abnormality in cell-type on either biopsy or surgical specimens, on a 10-point scale, based on the 2 most abnormal patterns found within the gland.

[5] at this stage, treatment is usually recommended to eliminate all prostate tissue. Surgery is the more common choice, but various forms of radiation (external beam or implantation of radioactive beads) have also been used.

[6] recently, high-tech variants (laparoscopic and robotic surgery) have been developed, but their additional benefit is incompletely proven.