I'm Walt Brandauer. I've sold lumber, drywall and shingles for the same building supply outfit outside Columbus, Ohio, for 31 years, the last twelve as sales manager. Marlene and I have been married 34 years this past June. Two kids, two grandkids, one bad slice.

In July my PSA came back high. On August 9 I had a biopsy, and it showed prostate cancer. My daughter Karen set up this page so I'd quit making the same phone call eleven times. The first two entries I wrote on a legal pad and she typed them in. So this is for the family, the fellows at work, and anybody else walking down this same fairway.

Sunday, September 26, 1999

What a day. Marlene made pot roast and I didn't leave the couch from noon on except to get more coffee. Going into today the U.S. was down 10 to 6 at Brookline, and every man on TV said it was over. Saturday night Crenshaw told the reporters he had a good feeling, and I figured he was whistling past the graveyard.

Then they came out this morning and won one match after another. By the time Justin Leonard was on 17 with Olazabal, Marlene was sitting on the edge of the cushion, and she doesn't know a sand wedge from a salad fork. Leonard rolled in that long putt and the whole team ran out on the green. I didn't care for that part. The other fellow still had a putt, and that's not how you do it. But I'll admit I was hollering too.

Our son Jeff called from Dayton after. He said, "Dad. Ten to six." That's all he said. I knew what he meant.

Sixteen days till surgery. Down four with a day to play. Not dead yet.

Went to the hospital blood bank on my lunch hour and gave a pint of my own blood to keep on the shelf in case they need it on the 12th. Another one next week. The nurse gave me orange juice and a cookie like I was six, and I ate both. Marlene already has the hospital bag packed. It's sitting by the bedroom door like a dog waiting for a walk.

Short one tonight. Tired.

Called Dr. R.'s office at 8:01 this morning (he's the urologist) and told the girl I want the surgery. Tuesday, October 12, 7:30 a.m. She said, "We'll see you then, Mr. Brandauer," like it was a tee time.

Here's how I got there, for those who asked. Both doctors were straight with me. The seeds are one morning at the hospital and back to work in a few days. The surgery is a couple, three days in the hospital and some weeks at home. But at 58 I've got, God willing, a lot of years left, and I want to know. With surgery they take it out, look at it under a microscope and tell you if they got it all. If something comes back later, radiation is still on the table. It doesn't go the other direction near as easy. I'm a man who likes the invoice paid and the file closed.

Marlene said, "Then that's what we'll do." She said "we" and she meant it. Thirty-four years and she has never once said "you" when it counted.

Left work at 4 and drove out to the muni and played the back nine by myself. I haven't played alone in twenty years. It's usually Gene and Bud and me on Saturdays, and the most serious thing we talk about is Bud's hook.

Nobody out there but a couple of high school kids and a fellow on a mower. I shot a 44, about my usual, with a double on 13, where I always make a double.

I didn't settle anything, if that's what you're wondering. But here's what I thought about. On the back nine you know about how many holes you've got left. You can't do a thing about the ones behind you. You play the shot in front of you. That's about as deep as I get.

On 18 I hit the best drive I've hit all year. Straight down the middle with a little draw. Nobody saw it but me and a goose.

Weather: low 70s, clear, first little hint of fall

Saw the radiation doctor today about the seed implants. Nice young fellow, younger than my son I think, which is getting to be the case with most doctors. He drew me a picture on the paper on the exam table. They put in something like a hundred little radioactive seeds, each about the size of a grain of rice, and they stay put and do their work. Outpatient. Back at the desk in a couple of days.

I'll be honest, it sounded pretty good. Nobody cutting on anybody. Then I asked him what happens if it comes back, and he gave me a straight answer, which I appreciated, and the answer was that it gets more complicated.

Marlene took notes in a steno pad. She's up to three pads now, color-coded. She's run the church rummage sale for twenty years and she's running this the same way.

The long talk with Dr. R., the urologist. He's about my age and doesn't sugarcoat, which I like in a doctor and in a lumber buyer. He had my numbers on one sheet. PSA 6.8. Six samples from the biopsy, cancer in two, Gleason score of 6, which he says is middle of the road. His opinion is it's caught early and most likely still inside, and that's about as good as bad news gets.

Then he went through both treatments, and then the side effects of each one, which I'd rather not list here since my kids read this. He was as frank as a weather report. Marlene held my hand under the edge of his desk like we were back in high school.

On the way home she said, "Well, he didn't say anything we can't handle." I said he said about eleven things I can't handle. She said, "I said we."

We stopped for a cone. Butter pecan. Doctor's orders, I told her. He didn't order it.

Marlene says I've gone from a man who never reads the owner's manual to a man who has read every pamphlet in Franklin County. That's about right. I've got a stack from the doctor's office, three books from the library, and every night after she goes to bed I get on the computer and read what's out there. Some of it is good, from the hospitals and the universities. Some of it is a man selling shark cartilage. You learn the difference.

Things I know now I didn't know in July. PSA stands for prostate-specific antigen. Something like one man in six gets this. Arnold Palmer had his surgery in '97 and he's still out there playing. Most men who have it die of something else. That last one is taped to the monitor.

At 1:30 Marlene came down in her robe, turned off the computer and said, "Walter. Bed." So that's where I'm headed.

Told the kids today. Karen and her husband Rob brought the grandkids for supper, and Jeff drove over from Dayton, which he doesn't do on a Sunday unless somebody's in trouble, so he knew.

I waited till after the corn. Then I just said it. I'd practiced something longer in the car and none of it came out. Karen cried, then got mad at herself for crying, which is her mother all over. Jeff went quiet and then started asking what a sales manager would ask. What's the timeline, what are the options, who's the best man for the job. I raised that boy right.

Tyler, he's five, asked if he could have another ear of corn. I have never been so glad to butter a piece of corn in my life.

After they left, Marlene and I did the dishes without talking and then sat on the back step till the mosquitoes ran us in.

Friday the 13th. You can't make this stuff up.

Dr. R.'s nurse called me at work at 10:15 and asked if I could come in at 3 and bring my wife. I've been in sales 31 years. I know what it means when somebody wants to tell you in person.

It's cancer. Prostate. Early, he thinks. More tests, and then we talk about what to do.

Marlene drove home, because I said I was fine to drive and she said no you're not. We sat at the kitchen table. She made coffee neither one of us drank. Then she got out a legal pad and wrote PROSTATE across the top and underlined it twice, and I started laughing and couldn't stop, and then she was laughing too, and that's how the first night went.

Mood: I'll let you know.