Subject:  Now that I've walked there, I can report |
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Xpltivdletd
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Date Posted: 18:15:54 05/23/06 Tue
Author Host/IP: 65.78.217.144
They don't have to fit your bum into a microwave oven to nuke your prostate, and you don't leave the place smelling like burned popcorn. Still rebutting Jay Leno, black naugahyde seats in a 1960s convertible would be a sight more uncomfortable.
I will not try & tell anybody this procedure is painless, because parts of it are not--even with one VERY good Nurse to get you ready. There is no way getting a urinary catheter installed is painless, and that's how they get the little broadcast antenna where it has to be to toast you. It's inside the catheter. But that only actually hurts as it's going in. Then it's just this sensory background-noise of having-to-go while having no awareness of piddling constantly via the drainage-plumbing.
The computer controls the process of heating prostate-tissue immediately around the urethra to 50ºC (122ºF), which it monitors via a temperature probe they put up your other exit but not very far. Then it holds that temperature for about 40 minutes. Nerves in that part of the body are not there to sense incoming Radio-Frequency energy or inductive slow-cooking of prostate-tissues. So, as your body tries to make some sense of the noise coming in via those nerves, it's helpful that a Nurse is there in the room to ask. Your body's best guesses regarding what's happening to you will probably be incorrect if they make any sense at all.
BUT... the whole thing is tolerable, in a hard-to-hold-still-for-it sort of way. I didn't bring reading material because reading while reclined almost-horizontal is awkward at best; very awkward without eyeglasses if you're me. Most of my medical adventures involving electronic stuff, I've had to lose the glasses. This one--they let you keep them on. Something distracting on TV was a major help.
Ordinarily they send you home with a non-wired urinary catheter and a bag, to let the first 3 to 5 days of healing happen more quietly, without stuff whizzing past the RF-burn. As I've reported symptoms of a latex allergy and they found no latex-free catheter in stock, they had 2 choices. Not having a place I could just sit around barefoot up to my ribs, holding one of those odd little plastic thingies while somebody made a parts-run, they sent me home with nothing installed. Told me some patients pee pink for weeks after, it's only an emergency if I find I can't go at all or develop fever/chills.
So far, 24 hours later, it's tolerable-to-OK. I blew out a few clots in the first hour (not painful, just glad they told me to expect some lumps in it). BUT, those clots would have clogged a catheter bigtime, and we'd have been in the ER (mostly very nice nurses but one doesn't feel much like socializing with them). So I'm still calling the supply-screwup that sent me home with no catheter--the complication that kept things simple.
Right-after, for the first 12 hours or so, when I had to go I SERIOUSLY had to go, right-now, but instead of my usual ¾-liter or so it was some little ½-cup-or-less. This routine got me up about 3 times overnight, with pink water again, but today it has settled down to a lot closer to normal. There was some burning sensation at first, but Tylenol® (the only OTC painkiller not on their Verboten List) was quite effective yesterday evening and well-into today--a single 650-mg tab of it.
I'm still recycling tap-water as if that were my favorite pastime in the world, but if this has been as bad as it gets, that ain't bad. RKBA! Best regards.
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