At 11:00 PM, the night before my scheduled prostate biopsy, I had a second dinner, and prepared to "fast" until after the procedure. Reluctantly, due to past experiences taking antibiotics, I took them the day before, and then the morning of the exam, and took my "fleet enema" at 7:30 AM, and then drove to the urologists office for the 9:00 AM check-in. I was taken to the back room and given the rear open surgical robe and told to lie down and wait for the doctor...
"How are you doing this morning? Despite needing to evacuate this morning, you should have eaten so you have the strength for this. It will take about 15 minutes. You will hear a series of loud "thuds" and then feel consecutive razor cuts. There should not be too much pain. Lie down on your left side facing away from the screen and raise your left leg in the air at a 45 degree angle and hold it there. Here we go..." "Ouch...ouch...that smarts...I seem to be feeling every cut...my left leg is getting a "crazy horse" cramp...should I feel this? I feel like I'm going to pass out...snap nine...I can't hold my leg up anymore..." "We are almost finished...hang in there...nurse, how are the views on the screen? We need to redo that one." "That's 4 more cuts...oh my gosh, this hurts!" "You are done. You did VERY well during the procedure! You can dressed and check out at the front desk. You can't take aspirin,and need to continue your antibiotics for a day. You may experience blood for a few days. Call us if it doesn't stop..." "Nurse...should I know anything else?" "No, just drive home, eat, and then you can have a regular work day. Come in a week for your results..."
I drove home, and the pain of sitting on the car seat developed. By the time I got home it was all I could do to get a protein shake out of the downstairs refrigerator and crawl into the downstairs guest bed on my right side. It hurt too much to lie in any other position. I put the cell phone under my pillow and fell asleep. When I awoke, still in pain, I called the doctor's office (and amazingly got someone to answer!) to ask what I should do. I was told to use Tylenol Extra Strength, and I called an associate at work to get some. A few hours later, she arrived, reminding me that Tylenol Extra Strength had been removed from the shelves, nationally. She found a generic substitute. I made dinner, fell back to sleep, and woke up the next day sore, but ready for a day at the office!
A week later, the doctor's office called to say that the results were delayed, and would take another week. "Why? Is that a normal response time?"
I flew to California for a family event, and returned the following week.
"Your results are in...come in at 4:15 PM. The doctor will have to reveal them."
At 5:15 PM, I was taken from the waiting room with four patients to the back exam room. When the nurse's aide said she was going to take my blood pressure, once again I said to hear results it wasn't necessary unless I had to wait much longer!
At 6:00 PM the doctor came in and once again apologized for the wait..."I'm getting used to it...this is the state of our contemporary medical system! But I don't mind waiting to hear good news!"..."Well, I've got bad and good news...The bad is that the biopsy locations determined that you have prostate cancer, but the good news is that after treatment, you should expect to live! I can't give you too many details because our computer system is down, so think about how you feel about this news and call me for another visit, and we can go over the results more specifically, and tell you your options...I can perform traditional or robotics surgery, and I would also recommend that you speak to doctor Patel in Celebrations, Florida who is ranked as one of the top surgeons with the DaVinci Robotics procedure.
"Oh boy! This is not what I expected to hear! And I had just thought not being able to get Long Term Care insurance was my only problem! This must be psychosomatic!"
I left the office and drove to a business card exchange to have a cocktail and take my mind off the news...
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