Post-Op

Over the last few days, I’ve held onto this piece, unsure of whether to publish. I asked Judy several times if she thought I should pull the trigger. I told her the writing was gritty in places.

She didn’t flinch. “Maybe what you’re going to say needs to be said as only you can say it. Maybe it will mean something to somebody. You never know. So go for it.”

“Do you want to read it first?”

“No. I trust you.”

Okay. That’s my best friend talking. Which technically makes her an accomplice. So without further adieu, there’s gonna be TMI this time around. If you’re sensitive about personal details, you need to stop reading now.

Seriously.

Stop.

Now.

Oh. Still reading?

Stupid.

Well, okay.

I apologize in advance to everyone who’s been through illness or surgical procedures that dwarf mine. In this case, I can only report on what I know. And if you already have intimate knowledge about what comes next, I apologize for boring you.

In my previous post I revealed my cancer diagnosis. Now for the messy part. The part I told you would be TMI.

Still reading?

Well, here we go. As Bette Davis once cautioned, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

My yearly physical in March showed a spike in my PSA results. A PSA blood test measures cancer cells in your prostate gland.

I was referred to a urology team. We started out conservative, but my “wait and see” treatment was quickly overtaken by events. Urine tests were coming back with all bad results. A biopsy of my prostate was required.

The biopsy was some bullshit. I’m just gonna say that up front. Holy shit.

Before I went, I asked Dr. Jake what the discomfort level is. He did one of those doctor shrugs they do when they’re thinking You’re gonna hate this. Out loud, he half-laughed and said, “You know, the person who invents a non-intrusive way of testing the prostate will become an instant billionaire.”

There’s a reason he said that.

They lay you on your side in a fetal position and jam an antibiotic syringe deep into a hind quarter. That’s done unceremoniously followed by the nurse saying, “Sorry. We have to go deep on that one.”

Well, hold my beer. We’re not through with deep yet.

After lubing you, they continue with unceremonious things – inserting a dildo up your butt which instantly gives you a simultaneous urge to do numbers 1 and 2. Even though you don’t have to. That continues through what follows.

A biopsy needle comes out of the dildo and punctures your rectum to get to the prostate. No anesthetic on that part. The biopsy was actually 12 samples taken from different parts of the prostate. I’m a man and I have no idea what childbirth feels like, but that was some painful stuff. Within 30 seconds I was trembling head to toe, my body covered in a veil of sweat. Shaking like a leaf. Every time I thought the needle couldn’t go deeper, I was wrong. This went on for 20 minutes.

I ain’t gonna lie. I’ve had extreme sciatica – crippled on the floor unable to move – and this biopsy was worse. I had never felt that kind of discomfort.

Some women might scoff, “Hell, that’s just one contraction!”

During the weeks I’m healing and peeing shades of red, the results come back and none of them are good.

Multiple scans are done.

Judy and I are called into an office and told by my urology team that I can have my prostate removed and walk away clean or I can try radiation and hope it works or I can do nothing and die fairly quickly.

I am referred to a surgeon in Charlottesville at UVA. Kirsten Greene. UVA’s hospital is where Christopher Reeve was taken when he broke his neck in nearby Culpepper. UVA is considered a top notch medical facility. Dr. Greene is considered the regional expert in robotic prostate removals. She preserves nerve endings to help you recover. She is intelligent and positive. Judy and I both left our first meeting feeling like I was in good hands. And Kirsten walks around all day wearing some really nice high heels. Judy noticed before I did.

She told us what was coming. And it was sobering, but our meetings always ended with Dr. Greene looking into my eyes and saying, “You’re going to live. And that’s a good thing.”

I had the choice of trying radiation. In fact, Dr. Greene was happy I was going to discuss my options with a radiologist. She knew the guy and said he was top notch.

That was a good meeting. But the radiologist reiterated that if I chose radiation and it didn’t work, surgery wasn’t an option. I would then die.

Pretty easy decision as far as Judy and I were concerned. Take it out. Make me cancer free. Oh. And also make me free from ever having to have a biopsy done again.

My surgery was scheduled 2 months out for the end of September. Dr. Greene assured us the lesions were encapsulated, so there was no danger of immediate spread.

I thought I would get a lot done leading up to the surgery. I was planning on diving into writing. I was planning on doing a bunch of winterization yard work. None of that happened. I found myself paralyzed. Walking around in a fog.

I was warned by a handful of friends who were either cancer survivors or currently going through treatment to not let the fear set in.

That was wise counsel, but easier said than done.

Probably 3 weeks prior to the surgery, I went through a 2-week habit of being up late at night, unable to sleep, and feeling the sudden urge to upchuck. It would come over me totally unexpected. Just a sudden urge to heave. NOW. Except all I would produce was dry heaves because any food or liquid in my system had already been well digested. These attacks lasted roughly 30 seconds and then I would feel absolutely normal.

In previous months, I’d experienced random crippling panic attacks that would last for minutes. My most embarrassing bit happened at a self-checkout in a supermarket. Hot flashing. Sweating. Dizzy. People looking at you, but they’re afraid to say anything.

Nerves. They have to come out somewhere.

What was interesting to me was that 48 hours before getting on the table, I found myself in a place of acceptance and calm. I was ready.

Check-in time at the hospital was 5:30 AM on a Friday. Needless to say, even though they encourage you to get a good night’s sleep beforehand, that did not happen.

I signed advanced directive papers giving Judy the right to keep me going if things went south.

The only person I remember talking to was the head anesthesiologist who I wanted to make sure knew I was a ginger. I’ve read horror stories about gingers being awake enough during a surgery to feel all the pain, but they’re not awake enough to signal for help.

She looked at me and said, “That’s very helpful. Thank you for telling me that.”

And that’s all I remember.

An operation that was supposed to cap out at 4 hours went past 5. My abdomen was pumped up with gas that distended my stomach to a cartoon level presentation. I’m already 15 pounds heavier than I should be, so after waking up and seeing what I could be was close to comical. My body was turned to a 30-degree tilt for the procedure.

They said I woke up in post-op much earlier than expected. I’m tellin’ you, man. I’m a ginger and we’re different.

When I woke up, Judy and Ivan were sitting at the foot of the bed. My surgeon came in with some of her team. Surgery went great. Nothing to worry about.

It took me a minute or two to figure out what state I was in. I took inventory.

The tops of my wrists both had intravenous needles inserted. Two on each wrist with one of them being just an emergency entry point. Which, by the way, got used during the night.

I had 7 holes in my torso.

A catheter tube had been inserted straight through to my bladder, right above my scrotum – an escape valve for emergencies we would unexpectedly encounter later.

Pinned to my johnnie was a container the nurses referred to as “the grenade” because it was the shape of an American hand grenade. The grenade was fed from an incision in my left side made to siphon off leftover blood in my abdominal cavity.

Across my belly button line were 5 incisions. Most of them quite small, but the middle one coming off the side of my belly button is about 2 inches wide. That’s where the robot went in. Wrapped around my stomach was an abdominal binder – a velcro-tightened wrap about the dimensions of a WWF championship belt, meant to curb pain from stomach spasms.

Sticking out of my penis was a Foley catheter. Imagine having the constant urge to pee, but you can’t because it’s being siphoned off into an attached bag connected to you by a couple of feet of plastic tubing.

Dr. Greene told me I should try to get rest during my overnight.

Yeah, okay.

First of all, I don’t sleep well. They gave me a shot of melatonin to help me doze. It did NOTHING. The night staff was surprised I never nodded off. Not once. All night. Which, to be fair, even if I’d fallen asleep, it wouldn’t have been for long.

I should have brought an Ambien with me, but I didn’t. One of the nurses said, “Oh, no problem. If you have an active prescription, we can call your doctor and have him authorize a single dose.”

I never saw that nurse again and the Ambien never appeared.

While I was in Post-Op, different people came in to look at my wounds about once an hour. They’d remove the abdominal WWF belt. Poke around. Strap it back on tight. It took 2 people. Of course, each time they do this, my wounds are provoked and drip.

My dear friend Michael came to visit me in the evening hours. He has been helping edit my Santa book. Michael is older than me. A Vietnam veteran who came in direct contact with Agent Orange. He’s had and beaten cancer twice. He is also my yoga instructor. He sat at the end of my bed brimming with a new idea for the book and it was a GREAT idea.

About 2 hours after Michael left, the gas pains started. They increased in intensity as the hours passed.

At 3 AM, two nurses came in and turned on the lights. Their task was to introduce another IV into my left wrist because one of the other IVs was hemorrhaging. Judy and I both have veins you could find from across the room. But these two acted like they’d never done this before. For 20 MINUTES, they worked together to gouge up the veins on top of my left wrist before finally finding success. About midway through this intrusion, one whispered to the other, “Maybe we should go get someone who knows how to do this better.”

I heard that. Maybe you could have looked for that someone 20 minutes earlier. That would have been swell.

I let it go.

Pick your battles.

They wanted me to walk the hospital corridor up to 4 times during the night. Dr. Greene made sure I knew that part of the walking is meant to resituate your intestines. Okay. Important. Don’t have to tell me twice. They want you to move your bowels before leaving. They constantly ask if I’m dizzy. They can’t believe I’m so alert.

Walking the corridors was revealing. It was the first time I realized how large my gas-inflated tummy was. I really was a cartoon. When they inflate you with gas, it stays in your torso until it’s all absorbed through your stomach and your intestines. One produces repeated burps and one produces passing gas. Nothing smells because you haven’t eaten in 48 hours.

I took my first stroll with the aid of a walker and all my IVs attached to a mobile pole the nurse pulled along. I told her I needed to sit on the toilet. She stood outside the door. I passed gas. And I don’t mean just any gas. I’m talking about an uninterrupted stream of clean-smelling fart. It literally went on for 15 – 20 seconds without any fluctuation in tone. Like a solid note. It was AMAZING. And as a filmmaker, you can imagine how pissed I was that wasn’t being recorded. I could have become a TikTok millionaire overnight.

As I went to stand, blood was dripping on my left thigh. What the hell? One of the other IVs going into my wrists was hemorrhaging.

When I came out of the bathroom, the nurse said, “Well, I heard something going on in there.”

I returned to my bed where the nurse removed and replaced my bleeding IV. The bruising around my left wrist stuck around for weeks.

After my second walk in the middle of the night, I opted for not using a walker. And it worked. Having never had abdominal surgery, I wondered how I would feel walking around, putting pressure on things. It wasn’t bad at all. Maybe that was curbed by a drug they give you after surgery that kills pain for 24 hours. Not sure.

The gas pains worsened, though. They truly reared their ugly head around 4 AM. Judy had warned me about them. Oh, man, that was not good. I asked for a pain reliever which they were reluctant to give me. Can we give you some Tylenol? No. Give me the oxycodone. NOW. After getting approval from someone, they came in and gave me one. Not only was the drug fast acting, it was effective. I didn’t get high, it just normalized my pain issues.

I had problems with my oxygen level and when the reading fell below 90, an annoying beeper went off. I wanted to see if my yoga training could help. Each time the alarm went off, I did yoga breaths and I swear to you – as I breathed in deep, with each exhalation, I watched the monitor go back into the 90s – one degree for each breath. All the way back to 100. Thank you, Michael.

Throughout the night I thought about people who had been praying for me. I watched flood coverage on the wall-mounted TV for about 10 minutes and sent silent prayers to those I know who live in those places. I switched to a channel that played slow motion videos of dogs backed with a harp-like soundtrack.

I was served breakfast in bed at 6 AM. Awful. I always heard jokes about hospital food, and I am here to attest. AWFUL. Served not even lukewarm in a cardboard container. A single link sausage. A blueberry muffin. Something that resembled potatoes au gratin. And a large mound of scrambled eggs.

I took a bite of the eggs. Powdered scrambled eggs. No. Plus they were cold. Double no.

I told the nurse I didn’t want it. She went and heated the food up in a microwave. Still no go. Tasted awful. I told the nurse I didn’t eat breakfasts like that.

So she went and found me a couple of Jello cups and a banana.

The urology team came in about 7 AM and discussed removing the catheter in my side connected to the grenade. Then they went outside the room and one of them came back in and told me he was going to pull it out. I held my breath and it wasn’t horrible. Out in a couple of seconds. He told me the wound would weep for up to 2 weeks.

After walking the ward a couple more times, they discharged me in a wheelchair with a 2-day prescription for oxycodone.

I winced looking at myself in the bathroom mirror at home. I looked like a multiple stab wound victim that lived. 5 stabs across my abdomen on the belly-button line. Another stab above my scrotum where I had the catheter inserted into my bladder (only for emergency relief purposes, mind you) and then I had that small paring knife open stab wound in my left side.

That particular incision wept for 9 or 10 days. We continually changed out the gauze padding on my side wound, which for a while didn’t look like it would close up. Gauze soaked through immediately with orange-tinged “tears.” It was a major cause of having to continually wash my bathrobes.

And the colors on my skin from the bruising? Wow. Like Technicolor rings of Saturn presented on my widescreen gut. My reflection in the mirror is forever seared into my brain.

On my second day home, I had to crinkle my eyes a bit more to take in all the bruising while staring in the mirror. The rainbow color show was worse on day 2. Dang. They got me good including 2 long slender bruises along my thigh and outer arm where I would have been tilted and blood would have rushed and settled.

I went home wearing a diaper with my catheter tube weaved through one leg hole to an attached bag. Over the next few days, the diaper was changed frequently. Carefully. All my wounds were weeping. Constant dripping and constant cleanup. Especially that damned hole in my side. I’d be sitting in my chair with a bathrobe on and then I’d feel this wetness inside the robe. Dripping. WTF. Judy washed all my robes at least once a day.

Once home, they wanted me to walk 10,000 steps a day, but no more than 250 steps at a time. With a catheter wiggling back and forth uncomfortably. Carrying my bag of pee. As I made repeated walks of the house’s inside perimeter, I would sing to myself in my head. Songs like “He ain’t heavy, it’s my piss bag.”

Our dog Baby Sally didn’t know what to make of my return. I’d been gone overnight and then came back the next afternoon looking and walking like a Stepford wife. She got the message pretty quick she couldn’t jump on me and kept a respectful distance.

The steps they want you to walk are critical. Otherwise, the remaining gas in your swollen stomach doesn’t get absorbed as fast and the pain can be daunting. Enter: Oxycodone. Took the edge right off. I know the walking helped because when I took a 2-hour break one afternoon, I developed severe gas pains that began to let off as soon as I began moving around.

I have an older friend who warned me not only to do my steps, but to do my kegels. Pelvic floor exercises. Strengthening support for the bladder. My urology staff pushed the idea of doing kegels – 200 reps a day. When I’m told doing your kegels can make the difference between pissing your pants or not, I listen. I continue to be religious about doing them.

In bricklayer terms, when you are normally configured, your bladder leads to what is essentially a valve that leads to the prostate that also has a valve to control your flow. Removing the prostate eliminates one of the valves as well.

6% of people going through this have permanent incontinence. For many, that means wearing a catheter for the rest of your life. Because in those situations, you don’t even know you’re going. I don’t know how they do it without jumping off a bridge. Not trying to be Dougie Downer, but man, that’s some irritating shit. About the same percentage get a permanent painful untreatable swelling in the leg after lymph nodes are scraped to be sent to the lab.

Neither one of those things happened to me.

Other things did, though.

The first 10 days was the more grueling and messy part.

My operation was on a Friday morning. By Saturday afternoon I was home in a state of disarray – so rickety that Judy had to help me take my first shower – having to be oh so careful when moving around with my bag of pee attached. Having a #2 turned into a production number which was 20 minutes of cleaning up – after the movement. Washing, rinsing, sanitary wiping, disposal. Repeat cycle. I had asked Kristi before my surgery if dumping hurt after the surgery. She said she’d never been asked that question. Well, here’s your answer, Kristi. It doesn’t hurt. And it shouldn’t given that I was sent home with – wait for it – FOUR different laxatives to be taken daily.

Although. I was still bound up on the second day. There was some worry. Concern. I might have to go back to the hospital. Took matters into my own hands. A Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a Filet-O-Fish washed down with a glass of chilled prune juice.

Flash forward about 30 minutes and a couple of McGurgles.

There. Here’s your product you were asking me about, doctor.

On Monday morning, I went to have the catheter in my penis removed. As a friend told me beforehand, “It’s never as bad as your imagination thinks it will be.”

When Kristi looked at the catheter and my black and blue package, she said, “Oh, that doesn’t look like it was done right. That must have been very uncomfortable.”

She was correct. Uncomfortable? Yes. Did it kill me? Apparently not. My penis was not amused. It kept silently asking, “Why?”

They wanted me to go about a day and a half draining my bladder through the catheter they’d put there “for emergency purposes.” Then the switch was made to stem the bladder catheter and just attempt to pee normally. And this is a science. They’ve given me measuring vessels and want me to keep a record of how much I go and how long it is between trips to the bathroom. Keep a log.

The first day trying to go normally started out textbook. That was on a Wednesday – 5 days after the operation. I peed at normal intervals and yielded expected amounts. Color was good. Everything was great until about noon.

Couldn’t pee. Painfully so. Blocked. Stomach started expanding and I went into what they call a bladder spasm. I had 3 that day, but the first was the worst. My surgeon had mentioned bladder spasms, but almost in the abstract – like, don’t worry, this probably won’t happen to you. They actually send you home with pills for bladder spasms, but because I was already trying to go normal, taking the pills was highly discouraged.

My already overweight already swollen with leftover gas stomach expanded even more at an alarming rate. Like I might pop. Hard to describe, but picture the intensity of a charley-horse that won’t let go. I instantly went into involuntary hyperventilation. Sweating profusely. Huffing and puffing trying to blow the house down. The pain was high level. Nothing was in my control. PANICKING. Forcing myself into heavy yoga breathing trying to ward off the pain didn’t seem to work. I ain’t gonna lie. I thought for sure they’d have to call an ambulance for me. And then I wondered if they’d make it in time.

Our son Ivan was helping out and he dialed the urology folks while Judy, attaching a large syringe, used the emergency valve bladder catheter to relieve some of the pressure. Our surgeon’s head nurse Kristi got on the line and told me it would pass and she waited on the phone with me until it did.

Poor Ivan got a super show. When the attack hit, I was sitting on the couch in just my bathrobe and the robe got flung aside during my desperate breathing. So Ivan got to see it all. Dad splayed out in all his glory. Stab wounds. Bruising. Things sticking out of my gigantic stomach. The whole show.

As Steve Martin once quipped, “Not the $4 show, the $4.50 show.”

Judy was Superwoman during all this. Especially that first week where I was definitely having some touch and go moments. She took it all on without a grimace or an eye-roll. She never stopped moving and would collapse in exhaustion each night of the first week.

Our son Ivan was instrumental – making sure the trash got emptied. Putting dishes away. Vacuuming. Mowing. He was willing to take on any task or run any errand.

Kristi made the decision to schedule an appointment to have my penile catheter re-introduced, and in the meantime, we were directed to siphon urine directly through my bladder catheter. So. I ended up continuing to walk around with a bag of piss.

A couple of days later I went to the urologist on a Friday and had my penile catheter reinserted. As Judy said, “Yeah, hon, you were asleep when they did this the first time.”

It was another instance of my imagination running too wild. Was it comfortable? Oh, no. But did I live? Yeah.

It was a disappointment to walk around in my bathrobe having to wear a pee bag for another couple of days. Although, according to Judy and Ivan, my 8-year-old granddaughter was highly amused outside of my presence.

The following Monday we took the catheter out again with Kristi pleading, “When I take this out, please don’t pee on me.”

Hmm. She wouldn’t say that unless that’s happened to her a time or two.

This is when you know you’re an adult. When you can have what’s left of your package exposed in bright light in front of women who want you to piss and you don’t care. You just wanna get better. And hope you don’t pee on Kristi when she takes the catheter out.

I didn’t.

She injected 3 large syringes of saline into my bladder. Each one was a little more uncomfortable than the last. My job: Excrete the same amount of fluid. Sitting down, I only produced about half of what she’d injected. If I couldn’t empty my bladder completely, Kristi was going to stick the catheter back in. I had to stand up, but I did it. So they let me go home and try to pee naturally.

2nd time was a charm.

3 weeks in, there were still swollen tender sections along where the incisions were done. But the rest of me had settled down for the most part. I was able to control my pee pretty well, but I’d been wearing a diaper just in case. The diapers they make for adults are super thin and absorbent – I really couldn’t tell I had one on. My control improved daily.

Finally started walking the dog again. A full mile.

I was stiff in the middle section, so bending and/or twisting seemed to beg some restraint. I “pulled” on the stitches a couple of times, instinctively bending to reach something like I always could.

Slow and steady wins the race.

Calm the fuck down, Doug. Stuff like that.

At about that 3 week point, I switched to regular briefs. If I dribbled, it was never more than a couple of drops and I would immediately change my underwear. At that 3 week mark, I only dribbled if I did something I wasn’t supposed to do – bending, twisting, lifting something heavy, standing up or sitting down too fast.

But, man, I got better fast. Exponentially. Sleeping through the night without incident. Going at first for a half a day with no dribbles, followed by a full 24 hours, evolving to 36 hours. Eventually, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d leaked. No joke, I felt blessed and I’m not a guy that throws that term around too much.

We went for my 6-week checkup with Dr. Greene and after asking questions about my state of being, she asked me to lower my pants so she could look at my incisions. She was delighted. But not so much by my well-healing incisions or elderly nakedness. She sat back in her chair facing me and said, “Wow. You’re not even wearing a pad?”

“Don’t have to.”

“Doug, what you’ve accomplished in 6 weeks takes most people a year.”

Needless to say, I pegged out her meter for delighted.

Health-wise, I’m doing spectacular according to my surgeon. All my initial lab tests came back CLEAN. For the first year, I get tested every 3 months. I gotta tell ya, my biggest worry about the post effects was not being able to regulate peeing. As time went on, accidents dried up, if you’ll excuse the expression. I have all the proper nerve warnings, I’m able to hold things for 15 minutes or more after getting an urge.

I was told returning to “normal” would take roughly a month. At the 6-week checkup, Judy was happy to learn I was authorized to do physical things, but I was also told to proceed with caution. In a way, I knew I was good enough to return to activity, but I must admit having everyone wait on me for weeks was a pleasant side effect. I wasn’t quite ready to forfeit my privileged status, but I did anyway.

I was driving. Going on hours long trips without any leakage or even an urge. Went back to yoga which frankly I was a little skittish about. Yoga is all about stretching. And that went fine. No leaks. I was almost a little more limber than I was before the operation. That was a big confidence builder.

Then on the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend, I got brave. I decided to blow leaves.

Now you have to understand something about my leaf blower. It’s a Husqvarna. Don’t get me wrong. That thing will blow leaves all day. But before I went out and bought one, I made the mistake of asking my then boss what he used. He told me and I followed his advice.

First off, be careful of soliciting recommendations from a guy who’s pretty physical and stands over 6 feet. This leaf blower is heavy. At least for a spindly type like me. First you have to start it and then strap it onto your back while the blower is running. Okay. The mounting on your back and strapping in is a chore all by itself.

Blew a bunch of leaves and that all went well. I’m out there for over an hour. But on the very last part, I saw a white paper napkin balled up in a hedge. I thought I’d be smart and gently lower myself down vertically and retrieve the paper.

There’s a difference between thinking you’re smart and actually being smart.

I bent down SLOWLY, leaf blower still roaring away on my back. I got the piece of paper and stood back up SLOWLY. I’ve got this. No, actually I don’t. Because as I backed up about a foot, my heel tripped over a rut in the mud and I fell backwards on my back. With the blower still huffing away. The blower was just too heavy when I lost my balance and I involuntarily fell straight back, crashing like a ton of bricks.

Okay. So I’m on my back, leaf blower still going and I realize I’m actually lying like a turned-over turtle IN THE ROAD blocking one lane. And I can’t right myself. I fumble to move the switch that turns the blower off, but I’m wearing work gloves and they are too thick to move the switch. I fumble getting my gloves off so I can turn the blower off. I get the blower silenced.

During the time when it was running and I was helpless on the ground, I went through some swearing. Like every word I knew formed into new combinations.

Next I had to unbuckle the belt around my waist. Except I’m working with a very heavy outer shirt which is bunched up around my stomach and I can’t see past the bulge to find where the belt unhooks.

I struggle. And right about the time I’m free and ready to make a go at sitting upright and getting to my feet, a Subaru pulls up in the lane I’m not blocking. Window goes down.

The older lady in the car asks, “Sir, are you alright?”

Yeah, I’m fine. I thank her for stopping and wave her on.

And if I wanted frosting on the cake, I got it. When I went to sit up, I leaked.

Motherfucker.

I do self-humiliation well.

The upside? Some woman driving by in a car was treated to a free show featuring physical comedy she could laugh about while describing the incident at her dinner table.

I swear, I just give this stuff away.

When I fell backward, I came down full force on my right elbow. I was surprised it didn’t shatter on impact. That discomfort was telegraphed immediately. Funny bone heaven. Hours later, other muscles in my body complained. My right shoulder still hums a bit. Doug, my body said, what up? What the hell is wrong with you?

Our bathroom has been restored to almost normal with my array of prescriptions being the only reminder of the previous weeks. Gone are the wastebaskets and plastic bags loaded up with materials exposed to piss and blood. And Judy having to do laundry multiple times a day.

It’s been a rodeo, no doubt.

But let me beat this dead horse. I continue to feel better each day.

We recently had dinner with a couple we know and they told us about a friend of theirs going through prostate stuff. Remember the rule. You can go for the sure thing with removal and get rid of the cancer or you can try to retain your prostate by killing the cancer with radiation. BUT. If the radiation doesn’t work, you’re stuck. Scar tissue created by being radiated, including your prostate, can’t be operated on.

Well, unfortunately, their friend chose to gamble on radiation. And the bitch was his cancer went away. For like 5 or 6 months. And then it came back. And it has spread. And he’s going to die in the not too distant future.

That could have been me.

There are other issues with prostate removal that are worked on, and we are addressing that stuff. One day at a time, Doug.

When I was heavily involved in filmmaking a few years back, I was friendly with a director-producer named Jeff Wadlow who swept into the annual Virginia Film Festival to mentor the Adrenaline fest. Short movies, of which I was in a few, that are written, filmed, edited and shown in a 72-hour period. They are mostly student films, so when they needed an old surly guy, they called.

Jeff’s aunt is Katie Couric. His mom was Emily Couric – a well-loved state senator who died prematurely from cancer in 2001.

The arc is not lost on me when I sit in the waiting room at UVA’s Emily Couric Cancer Center.

Life has some twists and turns. I’ll give you that.

Nevertheless, I am happy to be here.

I need the entertainment.

2024 was an interesting year for me. Started out as retired, feelin’ great, and then the whole cancer thing that was detected in March and seemingly erased by the end of September.

Judy and I celebrated New Years alone which is usually the case. Decided to wash away the old year and enter the new year with a better outlook. We had a GREAT evening. Even though we’re pretty much alcohol free these days, we went rebel and drank 4 bottles of bubbly between 2 PM on the 31st all the way through 2:35 AM on the 1st. Never got looped. Never had to take a nap. Ate lobsters, scallops, and filet mignons. Even played some Sinatra. Another stellar evening watching the ball come down with my best friend. I’d put it in the top 5 of our New Years celebrations. I would love to live it again.

Our 8-year old granddaughter is spending the weekend. We have been binging my box set of the original Lost in Space episodes. We see her every weekend and we watch a show each night she’s here before she goes to bed. She endured the entire first black and white season and now we’re 3 episodes into the 2nd season which is in color. Initially not particularly interested, she quickly glammed onto the characters and their personality traits and is now more and more engaged with each episode. Including quoting Dr. Smith. “Never fear, Smith is here!” and her personal favorite where she mimics his voice and facial expressions – “The pain, the pain.”

Our granddaughter is into play acting. She runs various businesses out of our library room. A cafe. A daycare center. A hospital. An art studio where she offers up her expensive artwork, but it’s okay, because she takes credit. One is a diner she manages and she’s constantly in the back yelling at Jimmy, the imaginary cook.

“Jimmy! The meat’s not even cooked in the middle! People are sending the food back! I keep telling you – cook the meat right or I’m going to fire you!”

I am teaching her magic tricks starting with cards. She knows 2 tricks and we’ll be learning a 3rd tomorrow on Sunday. I give her examples of magician patter and she uses the dialogue expertly and even bends it to the way she speaks. She’s just a fun kid.

When I was in the hospital, she made me a hand-drawn get-well card. On the inside, she wrote, “You are so brave.”

Well. Maybe when it comes to leaf blowing.

I would be remiss without a big thank you for all that held me in their thoughts during this time. If I was delayed in my responses or not responding at all, I deeply apologize. There were so many who reached out, some just to say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to say.”

And that’s okay because I don’t always know what to say either.

When the editor of Faux Paws got cancer, I sat down with her and said, “I am so sorry this is happening to you. I hate cancer.”

She thanked me for saying the word out loud. She was beside herself because everyone was tip-toeing around her on eggshells. She wanted to talk about how she was feeling.

As I told a friend in a recent email, fuck eggshells. I got no time for that.

The lesson in this for me might be akin to childbirth, or in my case, a prostate biopsy. Not pleasant when you’re actively engaged, but you forget over time. You get past things.

Ignore the bad and concentrate on the good.

I’m still here. And I feel pretty good. I’ve been concentrating on that. I’m typing between this and the Santa book. If I had to give you advice, it would be what so many men gave to me about their prostate removals.

You survive the temporary.

You’ll be fine.

Still reading?

Cool.

I take back everything I thought about you being stupid.