The great biopsy
December 4th 2008 04:13
My prostate biopsy appointment was for 12.30 pm today. Being one of those people who can’t help being early, I was there in plenty of time, and was out of my clothes and into the hospital open-backed gown (and a dressing gown, thank goodness) by the time 12.30 arrived. I should have been ‘done’ and finished by 1 pm, but something went wrong. I think the head of the department, whom I was supposed to see, got caught up on an operation, and so all his afternoon patients got held up as well: several of us sitting in our open-backed thingees and dressing gowns (and cuddly slippers) waiting, and waiting.
He and another urologist finally arrived about 1.45 or maybe later, after we’d all watched a dozen nurse, doctors, office workers and sundry other people walk back and forth carrying bits of paper and ticking things off on them, or making themselves cuppas or drinking water out of the water fountain. None of them actually told us what was happening. (Once they were functioning with the doctors later on, they were very good, but a bit of communication wouldn’t have gone amiss.)
I must say that the nurse who was in charge of me most of the time was very good, and friendly. But she had to go off to lunch between sorting me out and the actual op. However, she stuck by me well and truly after that.
Now, if you’re having a prostate biopsy, you’re supposed to retain at least a half bladderful of urine. How you gauge a half bladderful is beyond me, but I’d dutifully not gone to the toilet for a while before I arrived. That would have been fine if my biopsy had been done on time, but having to hang on for another hour or more was fatal. If I don’t go to the toilet when I really need to (under normal circumstances) the bladder muscles, or whichever, seize up, and it becomes very uncomfortable trying to get started. I remember being on a bus going to Christchurch one time; I should have asked the driver to let me have a minute to go when we were in Ashburton, which is about an hour before ChCh, but I didn’t. And suffered for it. Usually on such an occasion things will eventually happen, but with a bit of an uncomfortable struggle.
Anyway, I finally got into the theatre, where I was privileged to have one Ugandan nurse, one pregnant nurse, and another less conspicuous nurse (she was out of my sightline most of the time) plus Alistair, who did the biopsy, and the HOD who presumably was there to supervise, but seemed preoccupied with paperwork. That was okay. I’d met him before when he did a rectal examination three years or so back, and didn’t find him very user-friendly. Alistair was fine, and along with the nurses, gave me a blow-by-blow account of what was happening. The most painful thing was having the ultrasound moving around inside; the actual chipping away of the bits of the prostate seemed far less uncomfortable.
By the time they’d done the procedure, I was busting to go to the loo. And that was fine by the nurses, who wanted me to, in order to check my urine/blood levels. (The biopsy leaves you peeing a bit of blood in your urine for a few days.)
However, it wasn’t fine by my system, which literally and painfully seized up as though it was having a pregnancy contraction every time I tried to go. I dripped a few drops of blood, but that was all.
And what happens when you can’t pee, however desperate you may be? Well, if you’re in the urology day surgery ward, they eventually do an in/out catheter. And while the relief is enormous, putting the anaesthetic into your penis is most unpleasant. Still, it’s a short moment of pain, and well and truly worth the trouble.
Pain is a most odd thing. You anticipate it, but it’s never anything like what you anticipate, because the imagination doesn’t seem to be able to conjure up the actual feelings. Perhaps this is because it carefully puts pain memories away in the remote parts of the brain as soon as it can. It’s always worse than you think, but if it’s short-lived, fairly bearable. I don’t know much about long-term pain, which I imagine is another kettle of fish. Anyway, I’m now past the biopsy pain, and the catheter pain. (And the inability to pee pain.) I live to fight another day.
Apropos of nothing in the above, I see that US retailers are now advertising Cyber Monday as an adjunct to Black Friday (that somewhat notorious day of sales, when people often get crushed in the rush). Whatever next?
Steve Garfield has a flickr.com page
Someone in a hospital gown; photo by Steve Garfield
I must say that the nurse who was in charge of me most of the time was very good, and friendly. But she had to go off to lunch between sorting me out and the actual op. However, she stuck by me well and truly after that.
Now, if you’re having a prostate biopsy, you’re supposed to retain at least a half bladderful of urine. How you gauge a half bladderful is beyond me, but I’d dutifully not gone to the toilet for a while before I arrived. That would have been fine if my biopsy had been done on time, but having to hang on for another hour or more was fatal. If I don’t go to the toilet when I really need to (under normal circumstances) the bladder muscles, or whichever, seize up, and it becomes very uncomfortable trying to get started. I remember being on a bus going to Christchurch one time; I should have asked the driver to let me have a minute to go when we were in Ashburton, which is about an hour before ChCh, but I didn’t. And suffered for it. Usually on such an occasion things will eventually happen, but with a bit of an uncomfortable struggle.
Anyway, I finally got into the theatre, where I was privileged to have one Ugandan nurse, one pregnant nurse, and another less conspicuous nurse (she was out of my sightline most of the time) plus Alistair, who did the biopsy, and the HOD who presumably was there to supervise, but seemed preoccupied with paperwork. That was okay. I’d met him before when he did a rectal examination three years or so back, and didn’t find him very user-friendly. Alistair was fine, and along with the nurses, gave me a blow-by-blow account of what was happening. The most painful thing was having the ultrasound moving around inside; the actual chipping away of the bits of the prostate seemed far less uncomfortable.
By the time they’d done the procedure, I was busting to go to the loo. And that was fine by the nurses, who wanted me to, in order to check my urine/blood levels. (The biopsy leaves you peeing a bit of blood in your urine for a few days.)
However, it wasn’t fine by my system, which literally and painfully seized up as though it was having a pregnancy contraction every time I tried to go. I dripped a few drops of blood, but that was all.
And what happens when you can’t pee, however desperate you may be? Well, if you’re in the urology day surgery ward, they eventually do an in/out catheter. And while the relief is enormous, putting the anaesthetic into your penis is most unpleasant. Still, it’s a short moment of pain, and well and truly worth the trouble.
Pain is a most odd thing. You anticipate it, but it’s never anything like what you anticipate, because the imagination doesn’t seem to be able to conjure up the actual feelings. Perhaps this is because it carefully puts pain memories away in the remote parts of the brain as soon as it can. It’s always worse than you think, but if it’s short-lived, fairly bearable. I don’t know much about long-term pain, which I imagine is another kettle of fish. Anyway, I’m now past the biopsy pain, and the catheter pain. (And the inability to pee pain.) I live to fight another day.
Apropos of nothing in the above, I see that US retailers are now advertising Cyber Monday as an adjunct to Black Friday (that somewhat notorious day of sales, when people often get crushed in the rush). Whatever next?
Steve Garfield has a flickr.com page
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