They say the second best moment in a man's life is when he buys his boat and the best is when he sells it. I still have my ski boat (haven't got it out yet). I've had worst and best moments lately but first place this week goes to having my catheter out. There was some foreshadowing going on when the nurse on Monday told me to start taking shallow rapid breaths and I thought I was back in Lamaze training when she whipped it out on the second breath. As usual you get the vaguest idea of what'll happen next - "you'll be able to get your continence back over the next 4-6 weeks." What's the slope of the curve, y'all? For me it's been surprisingly fast, just 4 days later and it's pretty good! I do feel like an honorary woman, going from labor and delivery of a catheter (didn't take the baby home) to now having periods. Bear in mind I had 2 brothers and no sisters and was spared the sex talk with my daughter and step-daughter and somehow I didn't know the difference between absorbant, superabsorbant, light, heavy pads. Is a 3 pad day a light day or a heavy day? Being sure to wear dark clothes in case of a leak. So I experience Lamaze breathing, periods and now post-menopausal stress incontinence. I always knew I laughed a lot but never felt it in my pants. So I tell people not to tell me jokes, squeeze before I sneeze and am more serious. Well, a little. Wednesday was a washout (literally) due to nurse Jamie's presence, starting with her telling how she set off the burglar alarm and it went downhill from there. How she posed her first deceased patient as a nurse who "graduated fifteen minutes ago" sitting up all pretty in the bed. "How was I to know how fast rigor mortis sets up" and her supervisor yelling, "Who's the M-F who did this?" She had to lay on top of the old lady for the funeral home to get her coffin-ready. All day long Jamie stories and I'm wetting my pants. I gave up by 10am. It was worth it. Don't even get me started on diapers. But I'm alive and having that damn catheter out after 2 weeks has started a new round of gratitude.
It's funny how everyone I talk to who has survived cancer has come out with a new attitude. The tribal shaman or medicine man/woman in many cases survived a life-threatening illness, connected him or her with Spirit in way that those who haven't been through that ordeal wouldn't understand. I get it.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
The most bizarre moment and I wasn't even there...
Several of you have written or told me they enjoyed the funny anecdotes interspersed in my writings. I have a story to be told of my surgery but it’s not funny, even to my warped sense of humor. This is for my brother Don, who dislikes funerals and thinks the open casket variety is especially primitive. Turns out to be good for something in an unexpected way.
So the hospital named after the mother of Jesus did a great job in surgical care with my fantastic urologist Paul Hatcher, M.D. Nursing care seemed to be either fabulous or not-so-fabulous. The care received pre-op and in recovery was excellent, one of the nurses knew me from a mutual friend and had another good news story about prostate cancer survival in her family. Here’s the bad news. Someone (volunteer, nurse, coordinator, wasn’t clear) told my family I’d been moved to the Oncology floor and wrote down a room number and to go up and see me. As my wife Judy said it was a good thing she wrote it down so the family couldn’t be accused of misunderstanding her. So Judy is walking into that room with Jeremy and Hayley literally on her heels (and her friend Evans behind them) when they are confronted with an obviously dead person in a bed. Judy put her arm out to stop them but it was too late. She said later the person looked quite jaundiced and they couldn’t really tell if it was a woman or man but didn’t stick around long enough to figure this out. Judy went straight to the nurse’s station, asked (demanded) to speak with the nursing supervisor. She told her what happened, showed her the piece of paper and issued her demands: a different and larger room, across from the nurse’s station and an investigation into their procedures so this wouldn’t happen again. These 4 people decided to withhold this info from me until after I got home; they worried I’d see it as an omen. When the secret emerged, I expressed my concerns to them about how bad that must have been when Hayley said, “Oh I’ve seen dead people before when they open the caskets at funerals.” So her great aunt and grandmother (once again) helped even in death. The law of unintended consequences, or in this case – benefit. Jeremy laughed it off but correctly pointing out, “At least it wasn’t you in that bed!”
The evening agency (temp) nurse promised me I had Demerol or hydrocodone pill ordered for pain. Still trying to shake off the anesthesia and morphine haze, I didn’t want Demerol/phenergan and asked for hydrocodone. Thirty minutes later I called them and they said it wasn’t ordered but they’d called my doctor for an order, which I got ten minutes later. Despite having recited my medication list at least five times, I was never offered my stomach med Protonix (not a real big deal) nor my maintenance asthma inhaler Advair which would have resulted in almost a guaranteed asthma attack. Fortunately I followed the rules I recommend to anyone going to a hospital – be prepared and take your own meds with you. I managed to sneak two Tylenol tabs and my Advair inhaler and managed just fine. God help you if you go into a hospital on a psychiatric medication – they will typically omit it, reduce the dose, tell you that you don’t need it or shame you. Take those with you, too. The night nurse apologized for giving me a suppository, rather than saying something like “this is going to help you.” The day nurses were fabulous and one was another LMU instructor who knew Lisa Pullen who works with me. I think that got me better care, Lisa!
So the hospital named after the mother of Jesus did a great job in surgical care with my fantastic urologist Paul Hatcher, M.D. Nursing care seemed to be either fabulous or not-so-fabulous. The care received pre-op and in recovery was excellent, one of the nurses knew me from a mutual friend and had another good news story about prostate cancer survival in her family. Here’s the bad news. Someone (volunteer, nurse, coordinator, wasn’t clear) told my family I’d been moved to the Oncology floor and wrote down a room number and to go up and see me. As my wife Judy said it was a good thing she wrote it down so the family couldn’t be accused of misunderstanding her. So Judy is walking into that room with Jeremy and Hayley literally on her heels (and her friend Evans behind them) when they are confronted with an obviously dead person in a bed. Judy put her arm out to stop them but it was too late. She said later the person looked quite jaundiced and they couldn’t really tell if it was a woman or man but didn’t stick around long enough to figure this out. Judy went straight to the nurse’s station, asked (demanded) to speak with the nursing supervisor. She told her what happened, showed her the piece of paper and issued her demands: a different and larger room, across from the nurse’s station and an investigation into their procedures so this wouldn’t happen again. These 4 people decided to withhold this info from me until after I got home; they worried I’d see it as an omen. When the secret emerged, I expressed my concerns to them about how bad that must have been when Hayley said, “Oh I’ve seen dead people before when they open the caskets at funerals.” So her great aunt and grandmother (once again) helped even in death. The law of unintended consequences, or in this case – benefit. Jeremy laughed it off but correctly pointing out, “At least it wasn’t you in that bed!”
The evening agency (temp) nurse promised me I had Demerol or hydrocodone pill ordered for pain. Still trying to shake off the anesthesia and morphine haze, I didn’t want Demerol/phenergan and asked for hydrocodone. Thirty minutes later I called them and they said it wasn’t ordered but they’d called my doctor for an order, which I got ten minutes later. Despite having recited my medication list at least five times, I was never offered my stomach med Protonix (not a real big deal) nor my maintenance asthma inhaler Advair which would have resulted in almost a guaranteed asthma attack. Fortunately I followed the rules I recommend to anyone going to a hospital – be prepared and take your own meds with you. I managed to sneak two Tylenol tabs and my Advair inhaler and managed just fine. God help you if you go into a hospital on a psychiatric medication – they will typically omit it, reduce the dose, tell you that you don’t need it or shame you. Take those with you, too. The night nurse apologized for giving me a suppository, rather than saying something like “this is going to help you.” The day nurses were fabulous and one was another LMU instructor who knew Lisa Pullen who works with me. I think that got me better care, Lisa!
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Staples out but 6 days and counting...
Well I got my staples out. The waiting room was filled with grumpy old people and some woman across from me was quite vociferous (he ran 90 minutes behind). When I got in the nurse asked me how I was and from her body language she was braced for another complaint. When I said, "Great!" she heaved a big sigh, I laughed and told her the waiting room needed to be sprayed with Prozac. She said, "yeah, they take it out on us." I thought of giving some advice like telling people how far behind you're running but figured if you could run a prostatectomy through remote control, surely you could reason that out. Then the same nurse took out my staples which stung. She asked how she was doing and I said fine. She told me it was her first time. "Really?" I asked. "No, just kidding," she said. First humor in a pretty long time on the medical scene (wait until my next post and you'll see how grim it got).
Dr. Hatcher went over my path report. More info for those readers with prostates: my biopsies which were in 4 quadrants only showed cancer on one side/lobe but the pathology report on the removed gland showed cancer on both sides/lobes, involving 20% of the prostate. Gleason score still 3/4 but tumor stage went to 2C. Just shows how lucky I was. Still am ok, no PSA followup until October.
I tried to get him to remove my catheter but no such luck. He asked if I wanted to do it myself and I thought of the brokerage commercial where the surgeon tells the guy with the steak knife to make an incision between the 3rd and 4th abdominal muscles and asked, "Shouldn't you be doing that?" So I go back in 6 days to have this dadgum thing removed. My step-daughter Christy (an RN) offered to do it. Said I could cover up. I told her if something (unlikely) went wrong like dragging some alien spider out or a turtle clamped down on the end of the catheter, I'd rather be in the doc's office. She seemed not to take too much offense. More later...
Lane
Dr. Hatcher went over my path report. More info for those readers with prostates: my biopsies which were in 4 quadrants only showed cancer on one side/lobe but the pathology report on the removed gland showed cancer on both sides/lobes, involving 20% of the prostate. Gleason score still 3/4 but tumor stage went to 2C. Just shows how lucky I was. Still am ok, no PSA followup until October.
I tried to get him to remove my catheter but no such luck. He asked if I wanted to do it myself and I thought of the brokerage commercial where the surgeon tells the guy with the steak knife to make an incision between the 3rd and 4th abdominal muscles and asked, "Shouldn't you be doing that?" So I go back in 6 days to have this dadgum thing removed. My step-daughter Christy (an RN) offered to do it. Said I could cover up. I told her if something (unlikely) went wrong like dragging some alien spider out or a turtle clamped down on the end of the catheter, I'd rather be in the doc's office. She seemed not to take too much offense. More later...
Lane
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