The Deed is Done

Amidst all the madness, this was apparently not published. The operation was Wednesday, August 26th.

Right about now my prostate is probably rotting in some medical waste-dump. The maggots are probably already at it.
Anyone who reads this blog knows Yrs Trly had prostate cancer.
I’ve never been really clear about this. I don’t know how bad it was — I guess it wasn’t.
We’ve been monitoring my PSA for years. That’s Prostate-Specific-Antigen in my blood, an indicator of prostate cancer.
It’s always been kind of highish, although certain other things can make it high, like infection or sex.
But a few months ago my PSA came back really high, so we decided to do a biopsy.
Prostate cancer is also indicated by lumps or bumps on the prostate gland, felt by the Doctor poking around in your butt. My prostate was always smooth.
But the biopsy indicated prostate cancer, apparently inside the gland.
Supposedly this is quite common for men my age. I’m 71.
My father had it, which was after I left, so I never knew.
It was treated with radiation — his prostate wasn’t removed — which is what they were doing back then.
In my case, various treatment options were considered, one of which was radiation.
But my Doctor said radiation was good for about 10 years.
I said I expected I might be around longer than that.
So we decided to remove my prostate, and this is much less invasive than it was a few years ago.
The removal and re-plumbing is done through 4-5 small incisions with the Da Vinci robot. The surgeon is driving it through a computer.


The robot is over the operating-table.

I know a guy who had the same surgery, and he’s fine.
It’s still a major surgery. They’re poking around with power-drills, Skil-saws, and pipe-wrenches.
I had to do a “pre-op;” this surgery would involve hospitalization.
Finally the appointed hour came, 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, August 26th.
(I woulda done this earlier, but I’m still pooped.)
I was wheeled into the operating-room. The many tentacled Da Vinci robot was along the wall.
For the umpteenth time I was asked to recite my name and birthday.
“Robert John Hughes, February 5th, 1944, which makes me an old geezer.”
During my hospitalization I must have repeated that hundreds of times.
I was then asked to tell my surgery. “We’re removing my prostate,” I said.
“Is anyone here with you?”
“Nope.”
After that, lights out.
I woke up a few hours later in the recovery-room, oxygen in my nose,
Sit quietly and don’t ask questions. You’re in the hospital; their rules apply.
After recovery my hospitalization began.
-Day One: I couldn’t move.
-Day Two: I could get up in bed if someone was pulling me.
They said I was cleared to be discharged after two days, but I said I wasn’t confident. Getting up was still a struggle, and I’d be going home to an empty house.
-Day Three: A Physical-Therapist came and showed me how to get up using my elbow as a prop.
Worked like a charm.
I would be discharged, and no longer to an empty house. My brother-in-law had driven up from Florida.
I still had the catheter, and would have it until the following Thursday (September 3rd).
I had to figure out how to change bags; a leg-bag during the day, a bigger bag at night.
I could recount various travails of hospitalization:
-A bed shaped like a ditch.
-The gentleman next door yelling for help at 1 a.m.
-Lights on: “We’re here to check your vitals, Mr. Hughes” at 2 a.m.
-My intravenous would go wonky, and start quietly beeping — not loud enough to attract a nurse, but it would keep me awake.
-And then there was the telephone in my room that rang at 3 a.m. I finally unplugged it. I was using my cellphone, which I can shut off at bedtime.
The hospital’s rules are inviolate, but vary with each nurse.
Once I thought I’d try walking, but had red hospital socks, an indicator I was unstable.
“I’ll get a walker,” the nurse said.
“I never had no walker before, and I’ve already walked many times.”
“But you have red socks. I’ll get a walker.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “If I hafta use a walker, I ain’t interested in walking. To me that’s not productive.”
I was allowed to walk without a walker and without incident, confident and strong. Seven laps, far more than the average patient.
As seems to be the case with all hospitalizations, your ability to go to the bathroom (“number-two,” they said) triggers your discharge.
So when that finally happened, why did I have to run to the bathroom myself, instead of with a nurse, as required?
A five-to-ten minute wait after the call-button was average, and sometimes it was never answered.
And why was it always me looking out for myself when a nurse forgot a pill or something? “I can’t sleep with that light on.”
A lady came around to take my dinner-order. The primary entré was goulash. “Anything else?” I asked. I chose baked-fish.
Dinner arrived; it was goulash.
So the deed is done, and I don’t regret it.
I’m recovering slowly, I guess, but I need to nap a lot.
I’m told that’s the anesthesia; it takes a long time for it to wear off.
This surgery surprised me.
It’s not invasive, but still a major surgery.
It clobbered me a lot more than expected.
And then there are the Depends. I hadn’t been told to expect that.
I’m pretty much back to normal; all I’m left with is needing naps and Depends.
I made the mistake of telling my surgeon it was “all his fault,” when he visited during Day-Two, which was when I could barely move.
If I regret anything, it’s saying that.
Here I am slamming around as if nothing happened. He extended my life, and saved me from a horrible death.

• “Robert John Hughes” is me, “Bobbalew.”
• RE: “an empty house......” —My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly. My “brother-in-law” is her brother.