The first part of this tale is of a couple weeks of happiness with a few bumps. Like Christmas Day, when I blew out a couple of clots and sprayed pink (bloody) pee all over our host's bathroom. I cleaned up as much as I could find. Or when something the size of a dime passed through my penis, and I marveled at it, thinking that such would not have been possible for many years previously. It is a tale of ever-increasing vigilance, as restroom visits became shorter (a hoped-for benefit) but more unpredictable. It's picking up a Reader's Digest, then setting it right back down as I realized I needed some control over a formerly safe, if nearly-dead, process.
Things seemed to be progressing nicely. Clots seemed to be on the decline, and would show up every few days, and would clear acceptably. My urine remained almost entirely yellow, or even clear if I ran enough water (etc.) through. I was in Fat City, thinking that the urologist was a genius and that I had maybe waited too long to achieve this happy state.
January 20th - a day which will live in infamy (sorry, FDR). Things started out OK; even my first restroom visit at work seemed fine. WARNING: the squeamish, who should have bailed long ago, are hereby told flat out that things will get disgusting.
About noon, I felt a need to go, and went to the john. I was unable to get urine to pass, which was a bit unhappy-making, but I noticed blood dripping from my penis. OK, I thought, I have a clot which isn't quite passing yet. Sadly, I noticed this blood right after shaking some onto my pants.
I went back to my work station, trying to sit in a really inconspicuous way. After a couple hours, the urge to go returned, and I got some coverage for my position and went back to the restroom. I managed to pass a tiny bit of bloody urine, but was not getting relief from the pressure. I saw a clot trying to emerge, and was able to grab it with toilet paper and remove it.
Then I saw the thing which knocked me back. I saw a bit of white tissue, looking something like a grub, trying to emerge. I strained, I pushed, but advanced this piece of stuff only a little. My penis became directional, as if this thing was of some length and was aiming things, somewhat to the right. A small tip emerged, and I grabbed it with toilet paper and pulled, but I broke off a bit. At this point I knew I was in some trouble.
I called the Urology Clinic, and was told to get over there. I bailed from work, with excellent support from my co-workers, and drove to the clinic, about 20 minutes across Eau Claire. There, the nurse and a urologist tried, with no local anaesthetic, to get hold of the tissue and/or clots and pull them out. Getting some, they backed off and re-catheterized me, draining off a good quart of pent-up pee which was by now quite pink.
After discussion, they did a quick irrigation, which tried to extract some old clots, and set up a bag to run lots of fluid in as a rinse. Then they decided I should spend the night in the hospital, with a continuous irrigation, and would have a surgical look-see in the morning.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Peeing, Part 4
December 19th rolled around, and it was of course snowing again. We drove to Eau Claire in the early morning dark, and I got wired up again in the pre-op room with IVs, the much-appreciated heated blanket, etc. This surgery was to go up the urethra with a laser and fry out some of the obstacle-making parts of the prostate. "Photoselective vaporization" is the delicate medical term for burning out bits of one's interior. This was the day the urologist told my wife, but not me, that my prostate was 5 times normal size. Jeezus! If I'd known that, I'd have let him at it years sooner! Godzilla roaming around my lower peeing parts! What with the years of low PSA scores, there wasn't much thought of prostate cancer, but still...
It seemed to go well, and I went home wearing the traditional bag. This was Friday, and things seemed OK through the weekend, and the blood was way down by Monday morning, so I removed the catheter and went off to work. By the end of that day, things were coming around, and I was peeing in the potty like a big boy.
In fact, I was peeing with a vigor not seen since my pre-teen years. Over the next couple weeks, I had to re-learn some urination habits. I had to aim. I couldn't read during the process. I would be done in one minute, not four or five. Many bits of stone, blood clots, etc., were still passing and might slow or misdirect my stream at any time. You have to know that my original concern was that I could write notes and shave while slowly passing urine, and now I was dealing with springtime glacier-fed mountain streams that had no concern for limits. I spent as much time cleaning up rest rooms after myself as I had spent waiting for pee. Things, in short, were weird.
One contributor to the torrents was that I was encouraged to drink plenty of fluids, and indeed I drank much more water than usual, as well as coffee, soda, beer and wine. I tried manfully to keep up the inputs, but I did slow down in the evenings, switching to shots of tasty liqueurs in hopes of waking up less often. This was moderately successful.
I did learn to dislike Vicodin. They ought to go ahead and issue a bottle of Phillips Milk of Magnesia with each prescription. Did you know that Magnesia was in ancient Turkey? Now Manisa, this city is the home of a spiced honey that I really enjoy. Vicodin does nice things for pain but it bricks up the intestines something fierce.
It seemed to go well, and I went home wearing the traditional bag. This was Friday, and things seemed OK through the weekend, and the blood was way down by Monday morning, so I removed the catheter and went off to work. By the end of that day, things were coming around, and I was peeing in the potty like a big boy.
In fact, I was peeing with a vigor not seen since my pre-teen years. Over the next couple weeks, I had to re-learn some urination habits. I had to aim. I couldn't read during the process. I would be done in one minute, not four or five. Many bits of stone, blood clots, etc., were still passing and might slow or misdirect my stream at any time. You have to know that my original concern was that I could write notes and shave while slowly passing urine, and now I was dealing with springtime glacier-fed mountain streams that had no concern for limits. I spent as much time cleaning up rest rooms after myself as I had spent waiting for pee. Things, in short, were weird.
One contributor to the torrents was that I was encouraged to drink plenty of fluids, and indeed I drank much more water than usual, as well as coffee, soda, beer and wine. I tried manfully to keep up the inputs, but I did slow down in the evenings, switching to shots of tasty liqueurs in hopes of waking up less often. This was moderately successful.
I did learn to dislike Vicodin. They ought to go ahead and issue a bottle of Phillips Milk of Magnesia with each prescription. Did you know that Magnesia was in ancient Turkey? Now Manisa, this city is the home of a spiced honey that I really enjoy. Vicodin does nice things for pain but it bricks up the intestines something fierce.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Peeing, Part 3
This winter, 2008-09, has been a piece of crap up our way. Winter showed up right after Thanksgiving, sat down and made itself comfy, and has not let up. In Menomonie, we have not had any horrible snow events, only one over three inches, but we have had ten or eleven snows of up to two inches. One or two laid ice down on sidewalks that has not come off in several weeks, so walking sucks. And it has been colder than Toby's ass: half of January mornings have been below zero F.
My first surgery was December 9. It was snowing in the predawn dark when I drove to Eau Claire (Wendy was there, but I needed the feeling of control). Luther Hospital has these pre-surgery gowns that they blow warm air into, which are really sweet. I got all tubed up and waited. This was the day that Gov. Blagojewicz got busted, so the pre-surg TV had lots to watch.
My one-hour procedure took about two hours. It seems that my 2-inch stone was over 3 inches, and was resistant to the little tools they could send up the tube in my penis. The ultrasound. The laser. The tiny miners with pickaxes. I was mercifully well gone when this was going on. The doctor showed Wendy a tube full of rubble that had been my bladder stone. My best estimate of the size of this thing is maybe a small dinner roll, or an average lemon.
I went home with my first-ever catheter and bag. I was off work for a couple days, and went to see the doctor on Thursday, two days after the surgery. He removed the catheter, which showed me how easy it is to remove them, and althought I was still passing some blood, we headed for home.
Something wasn't quite right. I couldn't get urine to pass, bloody or not, and I was pushing fluids as ordered, and something had to give. I went to Urgent Care at our local clinic and got a catheter re-inserted. This involved more ladies (medical staff) mucking with my penis, and again any joy of that was wiped out by fear an concern for what was wrong.
I began to grow used to the bag. There was the leg bag, good only for a couple hours but discreet under the pants leg. I could walk the dog. No, there was no freezing even in the bitter cold. There was the night bag, which hung neatly on the stand next to my recliner. Don't have to pee, just glance at the bag.
Sunday, I removed the catheter myself. Maybe I'd be okay and be ready for work on Monday.
As it turned out, not so. I couldn't pee. And by the time I figured this out, we missed Urgent Care by half an hour and had to go to Emergency to have yet another catheter installed. Yes, more ladies mucking with my penis, and yes, fear still in control.
Word of these sad developments led the fine folks from the urologist to move my second procedure up from Jan. 16 to D ec. 19. The idea was that the enlarged prostate was not allowing post-surgical debris to make it to the mouth of the urethra.
In the meantime, I worked for several days wearing the leg bag. Instead of requesting a "potty break," I would ask for a "bag break," and go "tap off a little." As discomfiting a notion as catheterization is, the reality is that it's not the worst way to go and that there's some convenience involved. Arriving home, I'd switch into the "night bag," and I could see when it was necessary to drain it.
My first surgery was December 9. It was snowing in the predawn dark when I drove to Eau Claire (Wendy was there, but I needed the feeling of control). Luther Hospital has these pre-surgery gowns that they blow warm air into, which are really sweet. I got all tubed up and waited. This was the day that Gov. Blagojewicz got busted, so the pre-surg TV had lots to watch.
My one-hour procedure took about two hours. It seems that my 2-inch stone was over 3 inches, and was resistant to the little tools they could send up the tube in my penis. The ultrasound. The laser. The tiny miners with pickaxes. I was mercifully well gone when this was going on. The doctor showed Wendy a tube full of rubble that had been my bladder stone. My best estimate of the size of this thing is maybe a small dinner roll, or an average lemon.
I went home with my first-ever catheter and bag. I was off work for a couple days, and went to see the doctor on Thursday, two days after the surgery. He removed the catheter, which showed me how easy it is to remove them, and althought I was still passing some blood, we headed for home.
Something wasn't quite right. I couldn't get urine to pass, bloody or not, and I was pushing fluids as ordered, and something had to give. I went to Urgent Care at our local clinic and got a catheter re-inserted. This involved more ladies (medical staff) mucking with my penis, and again any joy of that was wiped out by fear an concern for what was wrong.
I began to grow used to the bag. There was the leg bag, good only for a couple hours but discreet under the pants leg. I could walk the dog. No, there was no freezing even in the bitter cold. There was the night bag, which hung neatly on the stand next to my recliner. Don't have to pee, just glance at the bag.
Sunday, I removed the catheter myself. Maybe I'd be okay and be ready for work on Monday.
As it turned out, not so. I couldn't pee. And by the time I figured this out, we missed Urgent Care by half an hour and had to go to Emergency to have yet another catheter installed. Yes, more ladies mucking with my penis, and yes, fear still in control.
Word of these sad developments led the fine folks from the urologist to move my second procedure up from Jan. 16 to D ec. 19. The idea was that the enlarged prostate was not allowing post-surgical debris to make it to the mouth of the urethra.
In the meantime, I worked for several days wearing the leg bag. Instead of requesting a "potty break," I would ask for a "bag break," and go "tap off a little." As discomfiting a notion as catheterization is, the reality is that it's not the worst way to go and that there's some convenience involved. Arriving home, I'd switch into the "night bag," and I could see when it was necessary to drain it.
Peeing, Part 2
The urologist is a smallish fellow, about my age, very tidy (encouraging in a urologist) and given to bowties. "Why are you here?" "I'd like to pee better." "You're in the right place." This was in October (2008).
His first discovery, from a urine sample, was a raging bladder or prostate infection, of unknown duration but possibly laying there for a long time. He put me on a combo drug (antibiotic plus, including sulfa which is mainly used these days for prostate infections) for a month. He told me that prostate infections are very stubborn and notoriously under-treated, which made me think that I might have been harboring this little bugger for maybe years.
After this course of treatment, from which I noticed some small improvement, I went back for an actual exam. This was the day on which things started getting personal and weird. First off, nurses started attending to my penis. One was very nice, and the other quite attractive, but when they told me that the doctor intended to shove a tube up my penis to have a look around in my bladder, and began buttering me up with the local anaesthetic, fear took over.
The doctor inserted the tube, with surprisingly little sensation, and showed me my bladder with a mini camera. We saw bumps where my enlarged prostate was a problem, and we discovered a stone in my bladder, built from various precipitated minerals, of some significant size. We thought the stone was about 5 centimeters (2 inches) long, and it looked to be dark mineral with some funny flaky stuff around it. Yes, I saw this live on a monitor. No, I didn't feel it.
I learned that one of the effects of the enlarged prostate was that my bladder wouldn't completely empty, that this probably contributed to the growth of the stone, and that we needed to take some action to remove these obstacles.
Two surgeries were scheduled: the first, done with a scope up my penis, would blast apart the stone and remove the pieces; the second, after the bleeding settled so the field of vision was clear, and also with a scope up my penis, would use a "green light" laser to fry ("photoselective vaporization") parts of my prostate gland and open the bladder and urethra for easy urine passage. These were to be outpatient surgeries, in that morning, home by afternoon, next day off, etc.
His first discovery, from a urine sample, was a raging bladder or prostate infection, of unknown duration but possibly laying there for a long time. He put me on a combo drug (antibiotic plus, including sulfa which is mainly used these days for prostate infections) for a month. He told me that prostate infections are very stubborn and notoriously under-treated, which made me think that I might have been harboring this little bugger for maybe years.
After this course of treatment, from which I noticed some small improvement, I went back for an actual exam. This was the day on which things started getting personal and weird. First off, nurses started attending to my penis. One was very nice, and the other quite attractive, but when they told me that the doctor intended to shove a tube up my penis to have a look around in my bladder, and began buttering me up with the local anaesthetic, fear took over.
The doctor inserted the tube, with surprisingly little sensation, and showed me my bladder with a mini camera. We saw bumps where my enlarged prostate was a problem, and we discovered a stone in my bladder, built from various precipitated minerals, of some significant size. We thought the stone was about 5 centimeters (2 inches) long, and it looked to be dark mineral with some funny flaky stuff around it. Yes, I saw this live on a monitor. No, I didn't feel it.
I learned that one of the effects of the enlarged prostate was that my bladder wouldn't completely empty, that this probably contributed to the growth of the stone, and that we needed to take some action to remove these obstacles.
Two surgeries were scheduled: the first, done with a scope up my penis, would blast apart the stone and remove the pieces; the second, after the bleeding settled so the field of vision was clear, and also with a scope up my penis, would use a "green light" laser to fry ("photoselective vaporization") parts of my prostate gland and open the bladder and urethra for easy urine passage. These were to be outpatient surgeries, in that morning, home by afternoon, next day off, etc.
Peeing, Part 1
One of the wonderful things about ones own blog is that one can put anything out there, and readers are at their peril.
This tale begins many years ago, when I began having dreams about peeing. No, I didn't wet the bed as an adult (well, there was the one time after dozens of beers, and I'm not really sure but I was still on the floor and the carpet was...) but I would dream about things going on all around me, about buildings falling apart, about places flooding, and I was standing, peeing, and i couldn't do anything about whatever was happening until I finished peeing, and I would never finish peeing.
If you saw the Lord of the Rings first movie and remember the part when they went through the Mines of Moria, with the rotten tunnels and collapsing staircases, I had a dream which put me in a place like that - years before the movie - and things were collapsing like that, and I was peeing at some restroom at the top of one of those staircases, and I couldn't leave until I was done...
At any rate, about seven years ago, I was about to have my first colonoscopy (last mention of that end) when I came up with a major peeing issue. It was diagnosed as an infection, and was treated for a week, and things went on. There had been some decline in pee volume for a few years before that, but this caught my attention.
Over the past years, I have asked my GP about the peeing thing. We have tried Flomax, a prescription drug which is supposed to help relax certain muscles involved with the prostate and peeing. We have tried Avodart, which is supposed to help to shrink an enlarged prostate. The GP kept trying to describe my prostate in "don't worry" terms such as "enlarged," "big," and "let me see if I can figure out how big this thing is," the last of which is of no comfort when his finger is up my ass.
My father used to tell the story of his first prostate exam. "Let's see... he told me to bend over the edge of the table... I heard the snap of the rubber gloves... he put one hand on my shoulder to brace me up... he put the other hand on my shoulder to brace me up... ... ... why, that dirty son of a..."
This fall, when it was clear that neither of the prescription drugs was doing anything in particular to relieve my urinary distress ( slow stream, difficulty starting, difficulty maintaining, waking up a lot in the night, etc.), we decided on a referral to a urologist.
This tale begins many years ago, when I began having dreams about peeing. No, I didn't wet the bed as an adult (well, there was the one time after dozens of beers, and I'm not really sure but I was still on the floor and the carpet was...) but I would dream about things going on all around me, about buildings falling apart, about places flooding, and I was standing, peeing, and i couldn't do anything about whatever was happening until I finished peeing, and I would never finish peeing.
If you saw the Lord of the Rings first movie and remember the part when they went through the Mines of Moria, with the rotten tunnels and collapsing staircases, I had a dream which put me in a place like that - years before the movie - and things were collapsing like that, and I was peeing at some restroom at the top of one of those staircases, and I couldn't leave until I was done...
At any rate, about seven years ago, I was about to have my first colonoscopy (last mention of that end) when I came up with a major peeing issue. It was diagnosed as an infection, and was treated for a week, and things went on. There had been some decline in pee volume for a few years before that, but this caught my attention.
Over the past years, I have asked my GP about the peeing thing. We have tried Flomax, a prescription drug which is supposed to help relax certain muscles involved with the prostate and peeing. We have tried Avodart, which is supposed to help to shrink an enlarged prostate. The GP kept trying to describe my prostate in "don't worry" terms such as "enlarged," "big," and "let me see if I can figure out how big this thing is," the last of which is of no comfort when his finger is up my ass.
My father used to tell the story of his first prostate exam. "Let's see... he told me to bend over the edge of the table... I heard the snap of the rubber gloves... he put one hand on my shoulder to brace me up... he put the other hand on my shoulder to brace me up... ... ... why, that dirty son of a..."
This fall, when it was clear that neither of the prescription drugs was doing anything in particular to relieve my urinary distress ( slow stream, difficulty starting, difficulty maintaining, waking up a lot in the night, etc.), we decided on a referral to a urologist.
I hope I'm Welcome Back
Okay. The big story of the house fell apart. The house has not done so. Quite. Yet. I will eventually spin out the rest of that tale.
In the meantime, something else engaged my attention. I will post this as an announcement and a warning. The next parts of the tale will involve some medical stuff about private parts, and blood, and tubing, and other generally disgusting stuff. I will tell you that it needs to be written, but you may choose to skip through as you need to.
I also hope to come out of the funk that both the house and the medical thing have helped build. If I can do so, the blog will be back on a semi-regular basis, and maybe I will learn and grow.
In the meantime, something else engaged my attention. I will post this as an announcement and a warning. The next parts of the tale will involve some medical stuff about private parts, and blood, and tubing, and other generally disgusting stuff. I will tell you that it needs to be written, but you may choose to skip through as you need to.
I also hope to come out of the funk that both the house and the medical thing have helped build. If I can do so, the blog will be back on a semi-regular basis, and maybe I will learn and grow.
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