And Now a Word From My Oncologist

This letter recently arrived in the US Mail.  Considering all of the radiation side effects I've had since the seed implant procedure on 2/29 I wonder if I'll receive another letter when the radiation declines by the first half life.

In With the New

Brachytherapy After Ten Days

I've been home from surgery for a week and recovery hasn't been as uneventful as the pre-surgery handout from my urologist promised.

So now I've met the O/R and know that I never want to go back.  I found an O/R to be quite an assembly line.  When I was doing all of my paperwork in the waiting room prior to the big event there was a woman with a cane bitching to staff and anybody who would listen about her eye and what some distant relative nurse she found on Facebook told her to tell the doctors that they must do.  When I regained consciousness after my procedure one of the first things I heard was the same woman, only a partition curtain away, telling the doctors in the O/R what some distant relative nurse she found on Facebook told her that they must do.  I met the urologist and oncologist who worked on me prior to my going into the O/R but I haven't seen them since.  

I've seen what the Foley catheter looks like installed on/in me and unfortunately it's something that can't ever be unseen, it looked like someone had successfully grafted my Johnson to a garden hose connector ("connection adapter", shown below minus the internal parts that snake into the bladder), plumbing fit for Frankenstein.  I knew beforehand that the Foley catheter was going to be part of the show and I chose willful ignorance prior to the procedure and being whacked out on anesthesia during since there was no way I could prevent its use.  I knew that such a device existed but had never seen one because I don't hang out in hospitals or look at kinky plumbing prØn.  

Once implanted and radioactive I was uncoupled from the hospital's electronics and plumbing I was placed into a wheelchair and sent out of the hospital with a single pain pill, a handout describing what I should do to for a successful recovery and a post card where I could rate my experience and express my customer service concerns to the hospital.  All of the hospital staff that I interacted with were courteous, pleasant and polite but there was no box that I could check that said, "please don't attach hospital equipment to my wiener", so I threw the postcard away.  

My recovery is coming along more slowly than I was led to believe it would.  Other than having prostate cancer I'm in fairly good health so I feel for any guy who isn't in good health and has to withstand this kind of well intentioned abuse.  I quickly came to feel as if someone had repeatedly stomped my genital area with hobnailed boots.  I had to pee frequently but couldn't produce and I found that incredibly frustrating and frightening.  I'd sit like a girl for 20 minutes trying to fight overwhelmingly unpleasant sensations as I tried to start the flow of the river from my yellow headwaters.  Eleanor got used to me closing the bathroom door behind me and having sessions of grunting and loud cursing.  In retirement a man needs to keep his mind working  so I've taken to cursing in Russian (link NSFW!) and да (yes), I'm also teaching myself the Cyrillic alphabet.  ебаTь!

I'm leaving the house on a daily basis now and advance scouting for bathrooms wherever I go because I never know when I'm going to suddenly be in need of relief.  At night I awake and roll out of bed every hour and a half to urinate, or attempt to, and I find this incredibly annoying (although not as annoying as having an advanced cancer).  My hospital handout says that this sleep disturbing side effect of my treatment can linger for months.

Next, many physical journeys by aircraft, automobiles and truck will culminate in the new home that awaits us as I work toward living happily ever after and cancer free.