Summary: the cystoscopy went easy but the urologist doesn't know what he's seeing down there.
I have slipped through the wrinkle in time, fallen down the rabbit hole, been abducted by aliens or knocked into another dimension. I am being innoculated by rare and unforeseen events to the point that it is getting tougher to surprise me. For me to move past the numb stage will require some ordinariness.
I ran into a friend in the urologist's office who fortunately got better news than me. The nurse calls out "Mr. Cook" and I stand up but so does an elderly gentleman and she acutely spots him as the correct one. Later another nurse comes out and asks for Mr. Cook. I verify they mean Lane Cook. I met with Dr. Bruce Woodworth, the third urologist in the practice of three. They are all getting to know my bottom. He tells me there's a possibility of a middle lobe of the prostate growing into the bladder and they want to make sure if I have or don't have one. Miraculously I don't. I told him I just thought he was looking around the neighborhood. I dreaded the cystoscopy (tube run up the penis to the bladder). As was the case with the biopsy, the numbing gel was fine, had no pain. I once had a dentist do something in my mouth and say, "oh, shit." That was my last visit with her. So Dr. Woodworth says something like, "that's interesting." He says 1/3 of my bladder wall is red, doesn't look like cancer. He asks if I've ever had radiation treatment. I tell him never (must have been one of my alien abduction trips, I can't recall which one). And no I don't put laptops on my lap - they get too hot. He says it doesn't look like cancer, could be a telangiectasia (like those spider veins on the noses of old drunks) or plasmacystosis, hasn't seen this in over two years. "We need to biopsy these," he said. "Go right ahead, you're there," I say. He tells me that requires general anesthesia so I am given to conclude it must be quite painful. He asks again if I've had radiation. My memory is so-so but that's something you normally recall. So I'm going to have a detour. Before I make it out the door I find out he and Dr. Hatcher, my main urologist, are booking robotic surgery now in June (so much for my wish to get it over with soon) AND that UT Hospital decided to buy something other than the da vinci robotic surgery machine(probably something I'll use in the future with my luck) so I have to go to Ft. Sanders or St. Mary's hospitals. I plan on having my wife and step-daughter Christy (an RN) there to keep them from killing me off.
I go to do my preop bloodwork, EKG and chest x-ray. The pharmacy tech shows me her stuffed pigs that sing songs and laugh. Unreal. The anesthesiology resident witnesses to me and invites me to his prayer meetings in a hotel, tell me hundreds of thousands of people have been healed by prayer. And yes, they are charismatic. He asks me how I feel. He's a really nice guy. I should call him back and tell him to get out of anesthesia and into psychiatry. I also thank him and tell him he better be careful who he says those things to (religious) or some disgruntled person will turn him in. He acknowledges that. They get my blood, do my EKG, say I'm ready to go home. I remind them I have to have a chest x-ray. Oh yes, take this down the hall. The waiting room is packed. I sit on the floor and Judy sits in a love seat next to a young woman who starts coughing and tells the receptionist she's really sick. She looks like she has the flu. We turn away from her. They come out, stare at me and say, "his buttons are ok" and walk back in. I have no clue what that means. Then the tech comes out in a moment and comes and gets me. He tells me to lean against the plate. "What about my shirt" I ask and he says that's ok, my buttons are fine and won't show up. With my luck, the radiologist will diagnose me with 3 or 4 small button-sized tumors in the midline of my chest. I've just had a snake up my hooter so I tell him I'll take my shirt off. He doesn't care one way or another and snaps my picture. He never looks at my brand new orange arm band to verify that I am indeed Lane Cook.
So Friday morning at 5:30 May 18th I have the mystery lesions biopsied. Stay tuned. Probably asbestos fibers.
