Month: February 2005

Two steps forward, one step back

Recovering from a major surgery like a prostatectomy is no easy task, and while Tuesday was a relative delight because I was basking in the comfort of being home, yesterday turned into a torture session.

My catheter tube became blocked and with no way to get out, urine was beginning to come out around the sides of the catheter. By the time the doctor was finally convinced that it was a blockage, it was nearly midnight and I had to go to the emergency room.

Embarrassing yourself by having to hold your penis in public and then screaming in pain in the bathroom while urine spews everywhere is not a scenario I care to repeat, though next time I think I’d scream the F-word rather than just screaming out in rage and pain. At least it sounds more macho than crying out in agony.

After a relatively simple and short procedure, the pain was entirely gone and I went home to a restful night of sleep.

I went into this surgery with a pretty clear idea of what the surgery and recovery entailed, but you never really understand the possible side-effects until you personally endure them.


Well tuned, the body
is source of a thousand delights,
disordered, ten million agonies.

Allenmore Nurses

Inspired by Leslie’s thanks for doctors and perhaps by my own indignation at the way some patients treat nurses, I’ll have to say that though I’m grateful for the precise hands of surgeons I’m probably more touched by those who nursed me back to health.

While JJ’s excellent skills and sense of humor struck a similar chord to my own, offering proof that men do have nursing skills and can develop them to a high degree, nursing in our society seems largely left to women.

Women from many different socioeconomic and professional level performed many acts of kindness in full daylight and in the dim recesses of night when hardly anyone notices while nursing me back to health

Though harried by hectic schedules and demanding patients, they offered gentle encouragement and sympathy for the pain I was feeling. It was hard not to get better when everyone around you seems genuinely concerned about you and is dedicated to getting you well.

A young mother suckles her whimpering babe
a nurse wipes oozing blood from a man’s side
both lovingly mothering-forth life itself.

Paen to the Gods of Medicine

Written after three days in the hospital without any sign of a bowel movement and learning that the doctor wouldn’t release patients until they had one.

Sometimes
when you’re stuck
in the tideflats
of despair
and nothing,
but nothing,
seems to float
your boat,
you just’ve
got to
give a shit.

Nothing else
will work.
No amount
of whining
will budge
that heavy barge
of sorrow.
The only thing
that’ll work is
to just plain
give a shit.

Of course,
sometimes
if you’re
an old fart
or just
a real
pain in the ass,
you can
get by
by mustering
a real stink.

But in the end,
you know
if you’re going
to right
your ship,
no amount of
hot air
will really
get you going.
You just
plain have to
give a shit
to get on
with your life.