Not that Bob
500+ Posts
It seems that cancer has little respect for “dignity.” This isn’t a “pity party” thread. I think I’m going to have it a bunch easier than many people. Still, those “Depends” commercials aren’t nearly as funny as they were a short time ago.
Some of you may remember my prostate biopsy thread from about 5 years ago. Well, we kept watching and biopsying, and damned if it didn’t finally turn up positive. I had the Da Vinci Robotic prostate surgery at North Austin Medical Center. It seemed like every nurse in the place had some type of encounter with my…well, my “business end,” and definitely not the type of “encounter” a guy would dream about. Like I said, not much dignity left. The worst insult to dignity, however, occurred the second morning after surgery when my GI system finally kicked back in. The Da Vinci type surgery causes the bowel to shut down, and you can’t be discharged until the old pooter fires back up. Well, it seems that the system gets going in fits and starts. Not one smooth “ahhh”, but a half dozen episodes of gas followed by a less than satisfactory, rapid release of water and mucous. I know, too much information…I just needed to “share” with my HornFan pals. Anyhow, on one of these trips from the bed to the bathroom, the night nurse joined me at the toilet, you know, just to see if I was okay. Having pulled myself up out of the bed numerous times (damn it hurts to do that with fresh abdominal incisions) all I could do was ask her to hold my hospital gown out of the way so that poo water didn’t splash up and get all over it. Have you ever had the worst trots in the world with a strange woman standing by you? No. Dignity. At. All.
Now I start the process of learning to control my bladder, hence the “Depends”. Slow progress is being made, which makes me happy, but it doesn’t take much of peeing in one’s pants to get old. And this is after living for 2 weeks post surgery with an indwelling urinary catheter. That, my friends, was an experience. There’s a guy at the medical supply store who has some sort of birth trauma or something, I don’t know. What I do know is that he has to wear a catheter, I suppose, forever. That man is now my hero. Any man who can deal with that crap every day is one hell of a man. He has my sincere respect.
Two more weeks before they pull blood to confirm that all the cancer was removed. After that, periodic blood tests as follow up. This creates more than a little anxiety.
All in all, this should increase my life span by decades, and I will look back on the “Depends” era of my life as a minor inconvenience…I hope. Like I said, this is not a pity party, I just want you males to go get a PSA so you can take action, if needed, and increase your life span.
Oh yeah…f cancer.
Some of you may remember my prostate biopsy thread from about 5 years ago. Well, we kept watching and biopsying, and damned if it didn’t finally turn up positive. I had the Da Vinci Robotic prostate surgery at North Austin Medical Center. It seemed like every nurse in the place had some type of encounter with my…well, my “business end,” and definitely not the type of “encounter” a guy would dream about. Like I said, not much dignity left. The worst insult to dignity, however, occurred the second morning after surgery when my GI system finally kicked back in. The Da Vinci type surgery causes the bowel to shut down, and you can’t be discharged until the old pooter fires back up. Well, it seems that the system gets going in fits and starts. Not one smooth “ahhh”, but a half dozen episodes of gas followed by a less than satisfactory, rapid release of water and mucous. I know, too much information…I just needed to “share” with my HornFan pals. Anyhow, on one of these trips from the bed to the bathroom, the night nurse joined me at the toilet, you know, just to see if I was okay. Having pulled myself up out of the bed numerous times (damn it hurts to do that with fresh abdominal incisions) all I could do was ask her to hold my hospital gown out of the way so that poo water didn’t splash up and get all over it. Have you ever had the worst trots in the world with a strange woman standing by you? No. Dignity. At. All.
Now I start the process of learning to control my bladder, hence the “Depends”. Slow progress is being made, which makes me happy, but it doesn’t take much of peeing in one’s pants to get old. And this is after living for 2 weeks post surgery with an indwelling urinary catheter. That, my friends, was an experience. There’s a guy at the medical supply store who has some sort of birth trauma or something, I don’t know. What I do know is that he has to wear a catheter, I suppose, forever. That man is now my hero. Any man who can deal with that crap every day is one hell of a man. He has my sincere respect.
Two more weeks before they pull blood to confirm that all the cancer was removed. After that, periodic blood tests as follow up. This creates more than a little anxiety.
All in all, this should increase my life span by decades, and I will look back on the “Depends” era of my life as a minor inconvenience…I hope. Like I said, this is not a pity party, I just want you males to go get a PSA so you can take action, if needed, and increase your life span.
Oh yeah…f cancer.
