Prostatectomy Perils or Adventures
with Walnuts
The short version: I’m fine!
The long version: Getting up three or
four or five times a night to pee is a nuisance. An extremely urgent urge to pee anytime
during the day is disruptive. That irrepressible sudden need to pee struck a
couple of times. Once it was so strong
that I had to pee in a grocery store parking lot in broad daylight. It was downright painful having to hold it in
even for another second. It was so bad
that I would have peed in plain sight of a cauldron of kindergarteners or a
passel of priests. I simply had to go,
and it was either then-and-there or wet myself.
When I described this to my primary
care doctor during my annual physical in October, he said “I’ll refer you to a
urologist.” He ordered a PSA test. You know, the one that tests for Prostate
Specific Antigen, a chemical produced only by the prostate gland that should be
found in very low levels in the blood if you’re a healthy man. Mine came back a couple of days later. It was way up from those from previous
years. Yep, time to see a urologist.
Seeing as how the diagnosis of
prostate cancer was based on elevated PSA, an MRI, a bone scan, and a biopsy
over the last three months, I had time to mentally prepare for surgery. Oh, I forgot that other procedure, the
DRE: digital rectal exam. When I say digital, I’m not talking of some
electronic item stuck up the hiney-hole. We’re talking the
longest digit attached to a doctor’s palm palpating for a gland that is
normally the size of a walnut.
(Recommendation: choose a urologist with small hands!)
The MRI revealed a couple of tumors
near the margin of the prostate on the left side. You’d rather not have tumors near the margin
because those cancerous cells are more likely to spread to adjacent
tissue. The bone scan looked for
cancerous cells that leave the prostate and show up in bone tissue. Good news here: no spread at the time of the
MRI.
I learned that biopsies of the
prostate aren’t much fun, but they aren’t especially horrible or painful. What is more agonizing is waiting on the
results from a pathologist, who looks at samples under a microscope and rates
the cells for how threateningly abnormal they appear. The Gleason scale, as it’s called, runs from
1 to 5. Pathologists don’t pay attention
to scores of 1 or 2.
Imagine 3 being about as threatening as an 8-year-old boy with an
axe in a pecan orchard. Four would be a
masked teenager on a dark night in the parking lot of a convenience store tapping
his finger against the trigger of a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. Five would be a deranged terrorist driving
his van full of explosives with fuses already sizzling into a crowd at a street
fair. You get the idea.
The pathology report consists of two
numbers called a Gleason score that might look like 4 + 4, which is exactly
what two regions of my prostate showed. Several
others were 3 + 3. Urologists use the
Gleason scores and a man’s age and projected lifespan to decide whether to
recommend treatment. If a fellow lives
long enough, he’s very likely to get prostate cancer. Fellows with low Gleason scores have
abnormalities that grow at such slow rates that some other malady will probably
escort them to The Pearly Gates before prostate cancer does. The urologist/surgeon notices that I’m a
young 63-year-old, and in pretty good condition. He flat out says, “You’ve got a life
expectancy of more than five years,” which is good to hear. He goes on to say “But those numbers mean you
can’t ignore this. Treatment is
necessary and must begin within three months.
You have two options: surgery or radiation. Your choice.”
He went on to describe what he’d do if I chose surgery: chop (not his
term) that prostate out from where it sits just below
the bladder to where it forms the urethra and splice those two back
together. He’d also take out a couple of
other nearby glands and tie off the plumbing that comes up from the testes. Those tumors
on the left side are near the surface just beneath a nerve that is important
for sexual function. He calmly stated
that there is little chance this nerve will survive the surgery and only about
a 50:50 chance the same nerve on the right side will be spared. He has personally done this surgery about a
thousand times already, and about 10% of patients never fully recover bladder
control. I’m thinking there’s a fairly good chance that I’d have to wear an adult diaper for
the rest of my days. (Of course, I
wouldn’t wear the same diaper every day. I’d change it occasionally.)
He went on to say, “I’ll remove
several lymph nodes from the area and send them to pathology. We’ll have that report within a week of the
surgery. That’ll tell us whether the cancer has spread.
That pathology report is crucial.
The best news would be that the lymph nodes are “clear.” If not, that means the cancer has spread, but
you’ll still have radiation as an option.
If you opt for radiation therapy as the initial treatment and radiation
doesn’t eradicate the cancer, that leaves surgery as a backup, but I will say
that doing surgery on tissue that has already been irradiated is much more
difficult.”
“Give me the sale pitch for
radiation,” I replied. He said, “I
prefer a radiation oncologist do that, so I’ll set you up an appointment to
hear what’s involved with that treatment.”
Another referral. No surprise.
That appointment was delayed for a
few weeks so that the Radiation Oncologist could recover from his own case of
COVID-19. Meanwhile, I’m thinking What if those 4 + 4 hoodlum cells are
busting out of the prostate? Just in case I were to choose the surgery
option, I went ahead and set a surgery date for February 8th. Mary Helen and I had scoured the American
Cancer Society’s excellent website on prostate cancer
so we were pretty well-informed by now.
Mary Helen and I were less than 15
minutes into that consultation with the Radiation Oncologist when I was
convinced that surgery was my destiny.
Here’s why. They’d have to use
drugs to drive my testosterone levels to zero.
You see, prostate cancers thrive on testosterone, so they’d want to
reduce the size of the cancer by starving the cells of testosterone for a
couple of months. Only then might we
begin 5 weeks of 5 days a week radiation treatment while continuing the hormone
treatment. Hormone therapy should shrink
the prostate to a smaller size, which would mean there’d be less of it to blast
with beams of radiation. However,
radiation kills not just the cancer cells, but all the other tissue lying along
the path of the radiation beams. And, in
the process of eliminating all testosterone, I’d experience many other side
effects including hot flashes and loss of libido. I know what the last word means, and it’s
something I don’t want to lose, so the rest of the session was more
informational. Mary Helen and I made eye
contact, and she knew what I was thinking.
The decision was made: Surgery it will be. I know
it was the right decision because when the radiation oncologist left the room,
I said to his nurse, “He’s saying I should choose surgery in my situation,
isn’t he?” “That’s exactly what he said
in a nutshell,” winked the nurse.
Walnuts come in a shell. I
figured this out!
It wasn’t a wasted
trip to the Radiation Oncologist. His
nurse set me up with a Physical Therapist right away so I could learn how exert
conscious control over my “pelvic floor muscles” using biofeedback to practice
Kegel exercises. That could come in very
handy after the surgery because I’ll have to learn how to pee all over. I don’t mean pee all over things.
I mean, I’ll have to learn how to gain control of sphincters like I did
way back when I graduated from diapers to big-boy underwear.
Even before the surgery, I had a
couple of sessions with the Physical Therapist.
She managed to get electrodes on either side of my hiney-hole
without making me feel self-conscious at all.
Then she had me pinch my pelvic floor muscles while we watched a
computer screen show just how little control I had over those muscles in that
first hour-long session. She sent me
away with homework to practice before our next session two weeks later. Just like when I was a pre-teen not really
interested in piano lessons, I didn’t practice nearly as much as I should
have. I even confessed as much at the
beginning of the second session. After
the mild scolding consisting of “G!R!” said in a tone which I don’t hear very
often anymore, but which I deserved, she hooked up those electrodes again, and
instead of sending electric current through them as a punishment, she asked me
to contract my pelvic floor muscles. I promptly demonstrated that that I could
pretty much make those bars on the computer screen move at my command by scrunching
my butt muscles. I need not have
confessed at all. She (and I) marveled
at my progress!
The third session was scheduled for
the Friday before my surgery on Monday.
I showed up at the appointed time (2 pm) but the office was dark. Hmm. I
waited for a few minutes and then checked my messages. Yep, 2 pm is the right time. Thursday would have been the right day. Even though I felt bad enough already, I got
an email reminding me of my missed appointment.
****
Having been through three
laparoscopic surgeries already (two hernias and an appendectomy,) I had an idea
of what to expect. When I told this to
the urologist/surgeon, he nodded and said, “This will be different. It’s more involved than those.” Thanks, doc.
I went on, “I’ve heard that adhesions
can develop following surgeries. Will
that be a problem?” “Could be,” he said, “but if we discover adhesions from
those prior surgeries, we can call in another surgeon to deal with those.” I said, “Wofford’s insurance plan is going to
love me.” He said nothing.
****
In the weeks preceding the surgery, I
had plenty of time to imagine ways that this routine robot-assisted
intervention could go amuck. I read
about the DaVinci robot, a $2M (the price, not the brand name) machine with
three or four arms situated over a patient lying on the operating table. It is controlled by the surgeon who sits with
his head inside a console where a 3D image is projected from a camera inside
the abdomen. At his hands are various
controls connected to instruments on those arms that do the cutting, pulling,
peeling, plucking, stitching, and cauterizing.
That console is in the operating room, but it doesn’t have to be. In theory, the surgeon could be operating
remotely from practically anywhere. The advantage of robotic surgery is
supposed to be extremely fine control of movements and excellent
visibility. I’m thinking What if he sneezes, or bumps a little knob
with his left hand when he meant to move the one on the right? There’s more at stake here than in some
virtual reality game where you get to start over without any consequences. What if
there’s a power outage right when he’s maneuvering a couple of those robotic arms
along the nerve he’s hoping to spare?
What if he discovers evidence that the cancer has already spread from
the prostate to adjacent tissue?
The surgeon said the biggest hole in
my belly would be the one where he could pull out those lymph nodes and the
offending prostate and send them for biopsy.
When I told the surgeon about my atrial
fibrillation and hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, he said he wouldn’t touch
me with a ten-foot robotic pole until I got clearance from my cardiologist. To be honest, he didn’t use those exact
words, but that’s what he meant. Ah,
another referral.
****
Heart doc has had me on a blood
thinner for a few years, since the first episode of afib
serenaded me and Mary Helen to the ER when my pulse was as irregular as a 74
Ford Pinto with a faulty spark plug wire.
Like each of the three or four episodes since, the afib
resolved spontaneously by 8 am the next morning, right when I’d be getting out
of the shower and heading over to the cardiologist’s office. Blood thinners like Eliquis prevent blood
from clotting, which is a good thing
when your heart’s sputtering and blood isn’t circulating through the chambers
the way it should. If a clot were to
form in your heart, it could be pumped out to the lungs and lodge there. Even
worse, if that clot lodged in the brain, you’d have a stroke. Science says that we’re using less than 10%
of our brain power, and I’d be scared to lower mine even more. So, I’ve been on Eliquis, a blood thinner for
a couple of years.
Blood thinners are not a good thing when you actually need
your blood to clot as is the case when six incisions are made in your belly so a
DaVinci robot can insert its arms and cameras inside to nip away at a prostate
gland that was once properly the size of a walnut but now has hypertrophied to
the dimensions of a watermelon. OK, obviously
I exaggerate here on the size, but all the urologist/surgeon told me when I
asked after the DRE was “It’s bigger than it should be.”
The trick is to come off the blood
thinner a few days before the surgery so that blood can clot properly during
the surgery. How many days is a few
days? The Urologist/Surgeon said, while
scratching his chin, “Maybe 3 days?” When
I asked the Heart doc, he says, “Oh, about a week.” I say, “Would that be a 5-day week or a 7-day
week?” “Yes,” he says.
Problem is, if I’m off the blood
thinner and I slip into afib, I could have a stroke
before, during, or after the prostate surgery. Predicament seems to be
the appropriate term here.
I’m not sure I remember correctly,
but I think my heart doc said, “What the hell!
Go for it. I’ll be on-call during
your surgery and I can file on your insurance, too.” He said this as he stood in the doorway of
his exam room wearing his COVID mask, having never gotten close enough to put a
stethoscope on me.
****
One week before the surgery, I
reported for pre-admission testing with all my insurance information. There was yet another review of my medical
history, my current medications, and the collection of several tubes of
blood. “Do you know your blood type in
case you need a transfusion?” asked the nurse.
“I’m not sure. These last few days
I’m feeling a little below average, so I’d say C minus.”
People have told me I’m an optimistic
person, so I wasn’t really surprised a couple of day later when the results
came back: 0+, which, to me is “Oh, positive!”
Over
and over I consistently answered that medical
history question about tobacco use with a proud and firm “Never!” But I fumble every time they ask me about
alcohol consumption. I want to be
truthful and precise. How many beers or
glasses of wine do I have week? Well, it
depends on the week. Some weeks maybe 2
beers and no wine. Other weeks, maybe
four glasses of wine (with dinner and my lovely bride) and no beers at all, or
maybe a couple. I worry about the
inconsistency of my answer to this question. Maybe I should just say “Always!”
****
Mary Helen doesn’t like to
contemplate potentially bad scenarios, so I had to approach this carefully a
couple of nights before the surgery. I found a Kennedy half-dollar coin to make
my premeditated point. “Hun,” I said,
flashing the coin, “do you know me well enough to know what I call on every
coin flip?” “Tails,” she said confidently.
“Every time,” I said. “So if I
flip it once, my chances are 50:50 of getting a tail. What if I flip it twice? What are the chances I’ll get two tails in a
row?”
Mary Helen was salutatorian in her
graduating class a Berrien High School in Nashville, Georgia. She would have been
valedictorian if some smarty-pants hadn’t skipped a grade and beat her out by
some fraction of a point. She’s real
smart. I wouldn’t have married a dummy no matter how good looking she might
be. Mary Helen is smart and
pretty, but she wasn’t very interested in a statistics lesson at 10 pm and
wasn’t sure where it was going.
“Each time I flip it, there’s a 50
percent chance it’ll be tails. That’s 1
out of 2, or ½. Getting tails twice
in a row is ½ time ½ which is ¼, which is 25%.
The chance of getting 3 tails in a row would be ½ times ½ times ½, which
is 1/8. One chance out of 8.” She’s starting to nod off, so I better get on
with it.
“What you reckon the chances are of
getting ten tails in a row?” “Not very
good,” she said. “Let’s do the
math: ½ times itself 10 times would be
one out of 1024!” I said triumphantly.
“So it’s very unlikely that I’d get ten tails in a row, right?” “Right,” she yawned. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that it is very unlikely
that something could go wrong with this surgery, but it is possible,
just like it is possible that I could toss ten tails in a row. Not likely, but possible. And you know me, I like to be prepared, even
for things that probably won’t happen…..like me having a stoke or something
during this surgery. That’s why they
asked me if I have a living will and power of attorney that I can bring to the
surgery. I know you don’t like to talk
about this, but we have to face it. And let me tell you this right now, I have had
a marvelous life, and if it ends in the next few days, I’ll be satisfied. Sure, there have been some hardships, but it
has been mostly really really good. I’ve been so
lucky. I’ve had good health. I’ve traveled to 25 countries. I’ve taken maybe a million pictures. I’ve been on backpacking trips. I’ve had a
dream job teaching smart kids what they want to learn. I have three grown children who are making
their own way through life. I was
happily married to Tia for 33 years, and now I’ve got you and my bonus
children. Yes, I’m very happy and I’m
not done living just yet. There’s more
I’d like to see and do. I’d like to be
around as the grandchildren grow up, and you and I have some more wine-tasting
to pursue. But if it all ends in a day
or two, I’m OK with that.”
“Do we have to talk about this?” she
pleaded. “Not anymore,” I said. “I just wanted you to know how I feel, and
that I’m OK with whatever happens. If I
have a stroke and it’s a bad one, just let me go. Don’t do anything big to keep me alive. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life
drooling into a pillow and unable to take care of
myself. I don’t want to be a burden.”
Pleased that I had managed to broach
this difficult topic, I switched off the light and got ready to hook myself up
to my CPAP. I thought to myself: I’ve
been to twenty-five countries, some of them several times, but I’ve had
traveler’s diarrhea in less than half.
Like my life, mostly quite good, with some bad. Then I remembered that extended episode of
agony in India should count double or triple bad. That kidney stone in Namibia was another
humdinger.
****
On the morning of the surgery, I
rummaged through the fireproof box where we keep all the important papers. Yes, the fireproof box that is so full we
can’t even close the lid on it. But I
found them there: my will, my living will, my power of attorney and health care
power of attorney. Some of them had been
updated since Tia passed away. I looked
through one where I’d scribbled my initials by each of my choices. I realized I may have changed my mind about
some of them now. I’m pretty sure I
don’t want a feeding tube if things go seriously wrong, but on the morning of
the surgery, there was no time to make modifications, so I clipped them all
together to take with us to the hospital.
I also produced a paper with every username and password for every
account I’m aware of, just in case she’d need these to settle the estate.
As I drove us to the hospital, I’m thinking What if this is the last time I ever drive? What if I wake
up from the surgery and discover I can’t talk or move some part of my
body? The what ifs were
coming fast and furious. I had to make
myself think about getting ten tails in a row so I
wouldn’t lose my head.
*****
My daughter used to work on the 3rd
floor of the Tower where urology patients go after surgery. She still knows some nurses there. She found out they’re now taking urology
patients to the 6th floor of the Tower, which had been
pediatrics. On hearing this, my other
daughter said something like, “Good for you, Dad. You’ll get a catheter that fits. A pediatric
catheter!”” “Maybe I do need to make a
few changes to my will,” I countered.
****
After we checked in at the Surgery
Admission desk, Mary Helen and I had only a few minutes before a staff person
came over and said, “Time to go to pre-op.
Ma’am, you’ll have to wait here.”
This wasn’t what we expected. We
thought she’d be able to stay with me while I’m in pre-op. Not in these COVID times. I tried to kiss her (Mary Helen, not the
staffer,) but we were both wearing face masks, and it just wasn’t the
same.
The staffer kept walking, so I fell
in behind the other surgery patient who was being led to the elevator. I turned to get another look at Mary Helen,
thinking What if this is the last time I ever see her? What if I see her again, but I’ve had a stroke and I can’t talk?
What if…..
****
By the time the urologist/surgeon
pulled back the curtain to my pre-op stall, I had already changed into the
surgical gown. Two i.v.
lines were in place. He said his first
surgery had gone well, and I’d be next in about an hour. I didn’t get to show off my red NASA t-shirt
that I wore just for him. It says,
“Failure is not an option!” He looked OK
to me, so if he had a hangover from a Super Bowl party the night before, he
must be over it by now.
Next came the anesthesiologist. I asked about the drugs they’d use on me, and
what they’d do if I went into afib. He described a whole series of drugs and
precautions they’d take. I didn’t get
all the names, but the anesthesiologist assured me that they’d be ready for
whatever might emerge. I was satisfied
when he left.
I must have dozed off. A masked lady with long eyelashes and a
surgical cap pulled the curtain back and told me her name. I’m not sure I remember what it was. Maybe Drucella? Maybe Cindy?
Anyhow, she cheerfully chirped, “Here we go!” Someone said, “This will make you relax,” as
they pushed a syringe into my i.v. Last thing I remember is being rolled out of
that room, turning a cornering and going through a set of double doors, and
reminding myself “When I wake up, I’ll be sore.
First thing to do is make sure I can move my arms and legs and
talk.”
***
I vaguely remember shivering
uncontrollably. Two Mary Helens were
there, leaning over me. Both of them were
smiling and gently welcoming me to wakefulness.
I couldn’t uncross my eyes. I
must have drifted back into unconsciousness for a bit. And then I woke up with a sore belly and
those automated compression sleeves on my lower legs taking turns squeezing in
various patterns to prevent blood clots.
It took a while for my eyes to
uncross. I forgot to test whether I
could move my arms and legs and whether I could talk. I was delighted to discover that I wasn't on
the pediatric floor of the Tower, which meant I got an
adult catheter.
Trendelenburg is a term for operating
on a patient in a head-down position on a tilted table. Trendelenburg causes the internal organs to
shift by gravity and makes it easier to do surgery on the lower abdominal organs
of men or women. Three and a half hours
of surgery in the Trendelenburg position to remove my cancerous prostate gland
left me with a sore abdomen and super-sore shoulder. There must be a way to
improve upon the Trendelenburg such that the pain in my shoulder wouldn’t be as
pronounced as the pain from my prostate in
absentia.
Mary Helen made sure I had plenty of
water to drink. Visiting hours ended at 9
pm but she stayed until 9:30. That pleased
me and worried me. We’re both rule
followers.
Around 10 pm, my saint-of-a-nurse
Cierra asked me if I’d like to go for a walk.
I knew that walking would demonstrate to the surgeon a quick recovery
and likely an early discharge so I said, “Sure.” “Let me give you some morphine first,” she
said. A few minutes later she pushed
some morphine into my i.v. and said, “You wanna walk now or wait a bit?” Within a few seconds I could tell the
morphine was working, so I said, “Now is good.
Let’s do this.”
After some fumbling with i.v. lines and an oxygen monitor, she helped me to my
feet. I wobbled to the door with Cierra
holding my elbow. “Do you feel up to a
lap around the floor?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
We went slowly and chatted the entire
time. I didn’t realize we had completed
a lap when she asked, “You want to go for two?”
Surprised that the first one went so well, I said, “Let’s keep
going.” I got back to the room in good
shape. It was 10:30 pm. I asked Cierra to call Mary Helen with this
news. Satisfied with my Herculean
accomplishment, I settled in for the night and was able to sleep for 10-15
minutes intervals until about 1 am when Cierra came back to empty the catheter
bag and extend the footboard so I could fit more comfortably in that bed.
****
The urologist/surgeon popped in at
about 8 am and proclaimed that I’d be going home soon. He had other good
news: he saw no evidence of any spread
of cancer, and was able to extract that rotten prostate while sparing those two
nerves. Sure enough, after a short
session with the discharge nurse who quickly told us what to expect in the
coming days, I was wheeled out to the car.
Mary Helen chauffeured me home only 25 hours after we had checked in.
Tramadol was necessary for only about
24 hours once I left the hospital. My appetite improved when I stop
eating so many Tylenols.
On Wednesday, I registered for the on-line
American Association for the Advancement of Science virtual meeting. I tried to watch a few science sessions on
the microbiome, but my attention span was about as long as my catheter.
I'd watch a few minutes and then decide I need
to empty the catheter bag or get some warm broth or take a nap or read another
story from George Singleton's YOU WANT MORE book of outlandish tales.
As you may know, anesthesia greatly
slows gut motility so one of the milestones after major surgery is the first
bowel movement. I called News Channel 7 on Thursday morning to report
this late-breaking news, which my daughter referred to in medical lingo as a
"Code Brown." I wonder if Code Brown appears in a medical
terminology course?
My microbiome was disappointed with
the clear liquid diet that I fed it from Sunday until Thursday. I
gradually introduced new challenges for them. I wasn’t courageous/foolish
enough to send them my usual breakfast of oatmeal with black strap molasses,
honey, and walnuts until Saturday morning.
Think about this: Cancerous
walnut out. Healthy walnuts in!
Mary Helen took excellent care of
me. For a few days I couldn't reach down far
enough to put on my socks. Being tall was never such a disadvantage
before. She was patient as I learned to manage the drips that escaped
from the dang catheter. She kept me full of clear liquids. We have a disagreement.... She doesn't consider
beer and wine clear liquids. She made sure I got medicine at the
appropriate intervals, and frequent kisses on the top of my head as I slumped
for several days in my comfortable recliner.
My healing was going quite well until
I pulled something in my lower back early Saturday morning when I reached to
get something I’d dropped on the kitchen floor.
That pain was actually worse than that emanating from my abdomen, and
persisted through Monday afternoon when Mary Helen drove me to my follow-up
appointment at the urologist/surgeon’s office.
A technician used a syringe attached to my catheter to let gravity feed
about 100 ml of contrast into my bladder.
X rays revealed no leakage, so a few minutes later, our favorite urology
nurse removed the catheter with a gentle tug.
I’m now in a man-sized pull-up diaper.
For the next few hours, I experienced sporadic warm wet sensations as
urine streamed into that diaper like a baseball being absorbed in a spongy catcher’s
mitt.
By the Tuesday morning, I was
pleasantly shocked to discover I could sense an urge to pee. I’d Kegel my way
to the bathroom where, just in time, I could pull down that diaper and direct a
stream into the toilet bowl. Ah, the
simple pleasures of life! Oh, so
positive!
I was instructed to lift nothing
heavier than a gallon of milk for the next few weeks, so I’ll have to lighten
my backpack when I return to work on Monday two weeks after the surgery. That backpack will double as a diaper bag for
some Depends, or the Equate brand of adult diapers called “Assurance.” Are you kidding me? Who came up with ASS-ur-ance? Easy to
remember.
According to the urologist/surgeon,
there’s a 90% change I’ll get a grip on those urinary sphincters in the coming
weeks and months. The best news of all
is when he called to say, “The lymph nodes are clear. We’ll monitor your PSA levels in the coming
months. Those values should fall to zero
if we caught the cancer before it spread.”
Think positive! Oh, so positive!
****
As Mary Helen drove us home, we
passed homeless people sitting outside Miracle Hill. I thought of the old
men there who may have prostate cancer. With no one to assist them
and arrange for medical care, there would be no chance for a life-saving
surgery. No way to pay for it. No one to greet them warmly when
they recovered from anesthesia. No one to keep track of their medicines
or doctor visits or catheters or help them in and out of a shower. Those
guys will have to live with their prostate cancer until they die from it.
Same is true for women who may have uterine or ovarian cancer.
I know that life isn't fair.
I've been blessed far more than I deserve. I
have family and colleagues that I love and who care about me. I have Mary
Helen. I have a home. I have a vocation that I love. I work with people who are passionate about
this work we do. I came home without a
prostate. I also came home without a
stroke, and for that I’m so very grateful.
At that crazy St. Anthony of Padua
Catholic Church we prefer in Greenville, Father Pat always emphasized Grace,
which he defined as “freely given unmerited favor.” Catholics say, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the
Lord is with you.” I say, “Here I am, so
full of freely given, unmerited favor.
The Lord must be with me.”
Amen and onward,
G.R. Davis Jr
16 February 2021
Acknowledgments:
Thanks to Eddie Richardson who had a
prostatectomy about a year before me.
Eddie generously, candidly, and humorously shared descriptions of what
he experienced. Eddie gave me courage
and confidence to know what I should expect at each point along the
timeline. He’s been a huge support
during this ordeal. Eddie reminded me
that I’ll have my turn to give guidance to those who are yet to encounter
prostate cancer for themselves. Thank
you Eddie. You were a good friend before all this. You are a dear friend henceforth. I want to be as helpful to others as you have
been to me.
Thanks to John Moeller, my dear
friend and our department chair, who covered my Physiology class and lab for
the two weeks I was away from Wofford.
John already had more than enough to do, but he voluntarily took on this
additional workload to give me a chance to recover at a reasonable pace.
My greatest appreciation goes to Mary
Helen. I wouldn’t want to go through
this without her, and I’m sorry she had to go through this with me. She’s my treasure. She makes me better in so many ways.