| I awoke at 6:00 AM at Katie and Tom's house in Doylestown where we had spent the past two nights. Katie and Tom joined us for breakfast at Starbucks. They dropped us back at their home and then they headed for work. We left at about 9:30 AM for Jefferson Urology Associates. Cathy had confused me about the appointment time, so we checked with the Urology office at 10:41 AM and found that the appointment was 12:45 PM as I thought (Cathy thought it was at 10:45 AM). We walked around the Gallery Mall for a while and ate lunch there. I had soft pretzels and a smoothie. I was pretty nervous about the upcoming stent removal because I had been under total anesthetics for both of the previous stent procedures: insertion and replacement. I couldn’t imagine how it would be done (thankfully). We went back to the office at about 12:20 PM. I always think it will help to arrive early and am always disappointed when it doesn’t. We waited until about 2:00 PM and then we were ushered back to an examining room. A female medical student came in, read the summary of my last visit and asked me some background questions. I was concerned that she might want to do the “Urology Handshake” and want to hand-check my genitalia and stick her finger up my ass. That’s how all of my other urologic encounters have begun. It shouldn’t really matter to me whether a male or female does the manipulation, and after today’s experience, maybe it doesn’t actually matter to me. In any case, I don’t enjoy it and neither do they, I assume. The med student did not want to check me out and left to talk with Dr. Strup. Soon, Dr. Strup and the med student entered together. We gave Dr. Strup the Toledo Lighthouse T-shirt that we bought for him on Memorial Day (he is from the Toledo area) and chatted a bit about my recovery over the past six weeks. Then he said, “Let’s get rid of the stent.” I was happy to hear that the stent was going to be removed. I’ve had one of these tubes running from my bladder to my kidney since January 4th and it has hindered my activities. I’ve been avoiding stretching my left arm overhead and twisting my torso for eight months. I’ve had to forgo one of my favorite activities, yoga, for the duration. So I was pleased to be getting rid of the tube, but apprehensive of how the tube would be removed. The procedure to be performed is called a Cystoscopy and is very routine. The doctor and the student left and a nurse entered. She kicked Cathy out of the room and said that she was there to numb my penis. Well, I haven’t had my penis numbed since I gave up martinis in 1990; since I didn’t see a bottle of gin, I thought of the only other numbing that I know about: a shot of Novocain. I fearfully looked for one of those long horse needles that dentist use and thought about how she’d stick it in my penis and how it would feel. She had me lie back, grabbed my penis and washed it off. Then she said, "You’ll have to tell me how this feels", and squirted a wad of (numbing) jelly into my penis. I told her that it felt weird and unpleasant. The nurse exited and the doctor and the student reentered the room. Dr. Strup started explaining the apparatus to the student and showed her how to “open and close” some aspect of it. I saw a headlight on the end of what looked like a roto-rooter snake and started to wonder if I could go and do something else today. The doctor or the student grabbed my penis and started to insert the wire into it. He knew that I was unhappy and explained that the discomfort was due to something “going the wrong direction” in my urethra. He let me know about the milestones: “going past the prostate”, “we’re at the anal sphincter muscle, do some yoga breathing and relax (I hadn’t done any yoga since December and was starting to hyperventilate)”, “now we’re in the bladder looking for the stent.” I did not like this…not one little bit! At this point the doctor was reminding the student how to open and close what I presume is a clamp, maybe like a binder clip. Then I heard him say, “There! We have it!” At this point, I heard some dreadful news: “Are you ready for the hard part?” I puffed out a meek “Yes” through gritted teeth. Dr. Strup said, “Just kidding, it’s all done.” Apparently, when the machinery comes back out in the right direction, there’s no feeling of discomfort. He showed me the stent; it looked like a child’s straw, but with a curlicue on both ends. I had somewhat of a burning feeling inside my penis, but I was so happy that this ordeal was over. I rather enjoyed my last root canal by comparison. The funny thing is that it wasn’t pain that was bothering me; it was just a weird kind of discomfort. I apologized to the doctor for acting like a baby and thanked him for lending me his surgical expertise. I think that too often we take surgeons’ skills for granted and I wanted him to know how grateful I was for the very technical operation he had performed on me six weeks ago. After I dressed, I had to endure the burning of my first urination, but I had the same thing back in January and again in July, so I knew that the burning will go away in a day or two. After we left the urology office, I kissed Cathy and thanked her for all of her support in this chapter of our lives that began in October. |