Prostate Complaints

The prostate is a small gland, barely larger than a chestnut. And yet it carries a weight that far exceeds its physical size. It sits deep in the pelvis, at a junction of the male body — where urine and semen cross paths, where elimination and creation meet. When it becomes inflamed, swells, presses, or undergoes malignant change, this affects not only one region of the body. It affects the centre of what older language once called "being a man."

Medically, what is at stake is cells, hormones, PSA values, nighttime urination, residual urine, potency. That is real, and it deserves serious investigation. But it is not the whole story. Because few organs respond as sensitively to the quiet losses a man accumulates over the course of his life — losses of direction, of role, of meaning, of lived tenderness.