I had just dropped DeDee off at McCarran Airport, waved goodbye and was heading back to the car when I felt a slight twinge in my lower right back. By the time I got home, the pain had increased and laying down only made it worse. It wasn't long before I couldn't stand upright and began shaking. Clearly something was awry.
I drove myself to the local hospital admitting, explained my visit, to which the gal exclaimed "Sounds like a kidney stone".
"Crap" I thought.
Over the next hour, I received a whopping shot of morphine and a round of x-rays. Sure enough, there were two 8mm stones steadfastly refusing to drain away with everything else.
Signed up for a lithotripsy a few days later.
So there I was, laying on a most uncomfortable table, surrounded by three gents who would play some part in the preceedings and a young lady whom the doctor claimed "Will be catheterizing you".
"Yikes".
The gas-man appeared, gave a quick "Hello' and I was out in a heartbeat.
The great thing about medical procedures is that with any luck, you sleep through the entire process while someone else does all the work.
And such it was that soon I awoke in a quite room down the hall and was on my way.
The Big C
Every 4 months I routinely had a blood test to find my PSA score generally weighing in a reliable “2”. Over the period of just a month, a tenderness and low grade pain coming from the nether region of my prostate caused the Doc to do another PSA which came in a whopping 28! Something was awry and the doctor suggested biopsy.
Thus, the fates had me baring my ass for strange men without benefit of anesthetic. You are, however allowed to watch a sonogram monitor as the doc plys his trade. Much like those aluminum cigar tubes, the sonogram finds it’s way where, under ideal circumstances, the sun don’t shine. An insidious wire device with a pair of nasty jaws at the end is introduced and what happens next is not for the faint of heart. Sure, the doc gives you a heads up, but there is a sudden and loud ca-chunk! - like that made by a power-stapler and quite frankly, the sensation of having your prostate power-stapled is right on the money; it took my breath away! What happens is, the jaws burst through your colon wall travelling at 200 mph (really) into the prostate taking a small bite thereof. By the third ca-chunk I had lost interest in the sonogram and was ready to call it a day yet we were only half done. The doctor quipped “You’re taking this better than most men!” which I took as a meaningless comment to keep me quite OR most men actually run screaming off the table into the street which is what I had in mind.
After 6 ca-chunks I sat upright; stunned and sure that should I stand, my entire blood supply would pour from my ass in a matter of seconds. While no such calamity ensued, I was informed I may see some “blood in your semen”. I am here to tell you there was in fact no blood therein. There was however a fucking geyser of blood shooting from my cock like a low budget splatter film and it took a good half dozen such bloodlettings before things returned to normal.
I was hardly over the trauma, when biopsy reports came back claiming 4 cancerous tumors were found residing fitfully within the confines of my prostate. The Doc was emphatic my prostate had to be dealt with immediately and outlined several procedures, from blasting with photon rays, implanting radio-active “seeds” to an utter “radical prostatectomy”. From the beginning of my family tree, no male had lived past the age of 60, succumbing to cancer. Sure, they were all power-smokers, but seeing my father, his sister and my mother’s brother all die of cancer within a year of each other, prepared me for an early demise. Perhaps early detection and modern technology would save my bacon. The pain was growing unbearable so I asked the Doctor to chuck out the whole thing like yesterday’s tuna sandwich; and thus it came to pass, I made a 6 a.m. hospital visit for a Radical Prostatectomy.
Having named my prostate “Roger”, in hopes he would soon be “Roger… Over and Out!” and today was the day. Gowned and gurnied, I wooshed down one corridor after another until we plowed through the doors of the O.R. “Humph” I thought, a room full of old radio parts. “This is Kiesha”, said the Doc, pointing to a petite femme tending a veritable wall of shiny instruments. Hundreds of them, reminding me of the wooshing gun racks in “The Matrix”. “How many of those you gonna use?” I inquired. “All of them” she said with a wicked smile.
I moved to the operating table, under a nova-bright light and had just gotten comfy when the gas-man surreptitiously raised the mask and I was out in an instant. 6 hours later I awoke in a comfy bed, in a comfy room. The operation took 3 hours and the rest of the time, I was parked in the hallway, awaiting an empty room, no doubt an object of conjecture by curious flies and evil children.
Easing in and out of consciousness, a nurse came in detailing the goings on of my environs. “Here’s the Morphine button” which, every 10 minutes allows you a quick fix. The Doc appeared beaming the operation was a complete success and the nurses… “will have you up and walking around tomorrow!”. “Fat chance” I thought and went back to sleep. The rest of the day proceeded in vignettes. I awoke to find a bowl of ice cream in front of me. I awoke to find a bowl of melted ice cream. I awoke to find the bowl gone. I awoke to find a bowl of Jello® in front of me. Only able to move my arms, I clumsily grabbed the bowl before it too vanished and tried eating. I never realized just how delicious Jello® was.
I decided to see what state I was in and slowly lowering my hand under the covers, skimming over my stomach… there it was… from pupik to pubis, a row of 23 metal staples. “They’ve installed a zipper” I thought, and moving further south, I found… to my horror, a rubber hose protruding from my pecker, taped to my thigh and snaking over the side of the bed when a visit from the nurse removed any mystery to my circumstance; the hose terminated in a plastic bag hanging from the bed and at regular intervals, she would empty the contents into a plastic canister and holding it up like a trophy, showing whatever was coming out of me, was thick, black, nasty and I’ll wager a foul taste. Also, she would empty this hand grenade size, clear plastic device called a Jackson Pratt Pump. A thin hose, pushed through my abdomen into the operated insides and with the grenade thing squeezed, it returns to its original shape while slowly sucking the goop from your guts… clever. The next day, between visits to empty bag, bucket and grenade, the nurse, as promised showed up to pry me from the bed. Sitting up was an effort, not only from the morphine, abdominal pain, fear my guts would explode and sure that with my luck I’d be forced to clean up the mess!
I shambled down the hall, hunched and inching along, pushing my drug dripper with one hand and toting my catheter bag in the other. Clearly, under duress, the first thing to go is vanity. If you look like Yoda, feel like crap and your gown is flapping open, you just don’t give a fuck. Thus, three times Friday and Saturday I was pried from the bed and mushed down the corridor and back, but the fun didn’t stop there. Also three times a day came the ritual urethral backwashing where 66 CCs of saline are shot up the tube into the bladder. The pain was such I would have confessed to anything, easily given up the formula for the secret rocket fuel and divulged the names of the leaders of the underground. But, that’s just me.
I'm amazed you can be cut open on Thursday, and sent home on Sunday but such was the case.
It was good to be home. Yes, I was still toting the catheter bag, which I named Betty and for the foreseeable future, we would remain very close. It was impossible to sleep in bed, so I set up shop on the living room couch and like Cleopatra on her barge, reigning supreme over the living room and the channel changer for the next two weeks. Those two weeks by the way, consisted of waking, sleeping, trying to eat and trying to walk. The catheter is a miserable device and wagging Betty to and fro was a dreadful experience. Now catheters aren’t all bad however. With a catheter installed, you can drive from Vegas to San Francisco without ever needing a pee break and you can sit through the entire “Berlin Alexanderplatz” without missing a scene. Alas, however, you feel like doing neither.
The wife was doting enough, bringing goodies and seeing to my needs. Showering was an experience, tethered to a bag and all, but I just stood in the shower and let the wife hose me down. It was a necessary thing, as evidently, the drugs leaching from your skin give you a cadaverous odor and a shower was always welcome.
I was only taking one drug for pain, whose label boasted “Avoid rapid head movement”. I had no idea what that meant, until the wife offered to brush my hair. While sitting, I let her have at it and at one point, the brush caught a bit of twisted hair jerking my head not more than a half inch to the left. Suddenly my head began spinning, faster and faster, then Pop! I passed out colder than a mackerel and remained so for the next few minutes while the wife, keeping her cool, preventing me from sliding to the floor, and, as she confessed later, slapping the crap out of me.
I watched Betty’s contents go from black, to Hawaiian Punch, to Kool-Aid to Bud Lite. Two weeks passed and an early Monday morning had us at the Doctor’s ready to turn Betty into a memory. The divorce proceeding was impromptu and ungainly. Standing over a tall waste bin, the Doc cut the cord, letting Betty tumble into the darkness. Giving a yank on the remaining stub, the catheter slid quickly from my bladder into the bin and while not a painful experience, felt like pulling a pound of liver through a keyhole. Free at last, free at last. A joyous occasion, not only to be without Betty but to get news from the Doctor on the outcome of the operation which was both good and bad. The bad being, there were not 4 cancerous tumors as originally thought, but a whopping 9 of the bastards. The good news was, there was no apparent evidence the cancer had spread outside the prostate. He was most emphatic on my good fortune saying “Another few weeks would have made the difference”. A sobering thought. No chemo or drugs will be needed.
Only two weeks from the operation and in retrospect, it wasn’t that bad. Sure, it’ll take a few weeks to get up to speed, but the worst part is over.
Easier said than done for a few hours later it was clear we had a problem. I stopped peeing at some point and the pressure in my bladder was becoming painful. The wife called my doctor bidding us flee to emergency and get re-catheterized immediately and by the time we arrived, I was screaming like Fay Wray. The wife found a wheelchair and there I sat, screaming my head off in the crowded emergency room.
Interesting to note, that should you not actually be dripping blood, you sit with everyone else in the emergency room over an hour watching (between screams) fat little families, hopping, laughing and dancing in to see the doctor for some petty rash or stubbed toe. Meanwhile, the entire populace of the waiting room had backed themselves into a corner as far from me as possible without sitting in the parking lot. At last, I was wheeled to Room 13 (naturally). Once on the table a young, female came in with a huge syringe in one hand and a (ulp!) catheter in the other. She gave me the shot - 60 CCs of morphine. “There!” she said, “That would knock out an elephant!” and certainly, a majority of the pain vanished quickly; but since I hadn’t been knocked out, I paused to reevaluate my opinion of elephants. She grabbed my pecker slathering it with lubricant. “So far”, I thought, “This is pretty nice”. Then came her snaking that thing into my bladder. No go… retrieving it to find it caked with blood clots. Again, with the same results. Again and again. Each time whipping that thing out of me like a dipstick on an ‘84 Peterbilt and eliciting screams of agony. A dozen times she tried, with the same results.
Oddly, if snaking out my plumbing wasn’t peculiar enough, at one point she broke into an odd reverie of how hard it was finding a good man in Las Vegas. “Oh crap” I thought, “It's going to be a long night”. The doctor on-call came in and gave a half-hearted and failed effort. At last my doctor showed up about 10:30 p.m. and surveyed the devastation. Another operation was in order and off we went to the O.R. his Mission Impossible Team once again at the ready and whatever he was going to do had to be better than what was happening. The gas-man bypassed the pleasantries and I was out in a whisper, awakening in the Intensive Care at 3:00 am. The wife was there and so alas, was Betty, having a last laugh.
What a night: part of my urethra had collapsed after the catheter was removed, packing me with blood clots and setting off this chain of events. To make things even more ridiculous, in her catheterizing frenzy, the nurse had punctured my bladder. . . several times. The events of this one night eclipsed my entire 4 day stay in the hospital. Instead of returning to work in another week, it became two more weeks on the catheter, on the couch.
Two weeks later, Betty had once again been relieved of duty and all that remains is incidental pain here and there and an immense scar - a surefire ice-breaker at any soirée.
Immediate Results: Prostate gone forever; any sign of cancer gone for the immediate future and hey, I’m down 24 pounds; if I could just stand up straight, I’d look great!
Long Term Results: Every six months getting another PSA and hope the cancer levels remain at “0”. On the downside, it appears “Sex” is a thing of the past, much to the delight of my wife and “Depends” are a thing of the future, much to my chagrin.
Observation: Because of my family history, cancer will no doubt reappear some day and smite my ass… but it ain’t today.Long Term Results: Every six months getting another PSA and hope the cancer levels remain at “0”. On the downside, it appears “Sex” is a thing of the past, much to the delight of my wife and “Depends” are a thing of the future, much to my chagrin.
Resolve: Give an occasional thought to cleaner, if not clean living.
Observation: Because of my family history, cancer will no doubt reappear some day and smite my ass… but it ain’t today.
Here are a few celebs that have dealtwith prostate cancer. Most are still alive.
Arnold Palmer • Richard Petty • Colin Powell • Harry Belafonte • Robert Goulet • Robert DeNiro
Louis Farrakhan • Merv Griffin • Rudy Giuliani • Charlton Heston • John Kerry • Nelson Mandela
Michael Milken • Pat Robertson • Bill Bixby • Norman Schwarzkopf • Marion Barry • George Foreman
Bob Dole • Jerry Lewis • Sidney Poitier • Frank Zappa • Sean Connery • Roger Moore
Every 4 months I routinely had a blood test to find my PSA score generally weighing in a reliable “2”. Over the period of just a month, a tenderness and low grade pain coming from the nether region of my prostate caused the Doc to do another PSA which came in a whopping 28! Something was awry and the doctor suggested biopsy.
Easing in and out of consciousness, a nurse came in detailing the goings on of my environs. “Here’s the Morphine button” which, every 10 minutes allows you a quick fix. The Doc appeared beaming the operation was a complete success and the nurses… “will have you up and walking around tomorrow!”. “Fat chance” I thought and went back to sleep. The rest of the day proceeded in vignettes. I awoke to find a bowl of ice cream in front of me. I awoke to find a bowl of melted ice cream. I awoke to find the bowl gone. I awoke to find a bowl of Jello® in front of me. Only able to move my arms, I clumsily grabbed the bowl before it too vanished and tried eating. I never realized just how delicious Jello® was.
What a night: part of my urethra had collapsed after the catheter was removed, packing me with blood clots and setting off this chain of events. To make things even more ridiculous, in her catheterizing frenzy, the nurse had punctured my bladder. . . several times. The events of this one night eclipsed my entire 4 day stay in the hospital. Instead of returning to work in another week, it became two more weeks on the catheter, on the couch.