Good morning all! Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends on the forum. I am long overdue for a post-op report regarding my surgery. This is for good reason.....
First, my surgery, while extraordinarily successful, took 7.5 hours! I wrote an email to my surgeon, Dr. Leveillee, asking that he take whatever time necessary to spare the nerve bundles surrounding the prostate. Guess what? He took me seriously! Also, the doc found a "suspicious" lymph node and decided to remove that as well while he had me opened up. When my sister told me that I was under anesthesia for 10 hours, I didn't believe her. My recovery the nexty two days in the hospital was unremarkable. I know I insisted on getting up out of bed the next morning and could barely manage to walk even a few yards down the hallway. But, that is in the past now, it all seems a blur.
To cut to the chase, the eventual results of my surgery are beyond good. I regained my continence within 4 days of the surgery when the Foley was removed because it wasn't operating properly. I still have an occassional leak when I cough, laugh, pass gas, but bottom line, the plumbing works. Second, I was able to achieve an erection within a week after the surgery. Thge doc gave me a Rx for some Viagra which I took on Day 8 and sure enough..... BAM, it was there. What a relief!!!! Third, if I felt any better physically, they'd have to clone me. The wounds from the small incisions from the surgery are healing rapidly, though they are annoyingly irritating. I am walking well and largely without any discomfort. Now, all this would have been incredibly positive except for the fact that I was still waiting on my post-surgical report. My doctors office set that appointment up for Dec. 21st, then pushed it back one day to Friday, Dec. 22nd. My buddy drove me to the appointment at the University of Miami Medical Arts building. I had to wait nearly 2.5 hours to meet with the doc because he was in surgery and running late. When he finally came into the exam room, he did some basic exams of the incisions, they had me pee in a cup and then did an ultrasound to see if I evacuated all the uring in my bladder. He was very happy that the urine and sexual function appeared to be in good order. And then, the report.......
The post-surgical report could not have been any better. During the surgery, the doc removed a suspicious lymph node.... biopsy negative. No surrounding tissue showed eveidence of any malingnancy. And finally, the biopsy of the removed prostate indicated one malignancy with a 3+3=6 Gleason. Dr. Leveillee, declared me a T2A, about as low on the scale as you can get and still be diagnosed with cancer. We talked more, the doctor, Raymond Leveillee, was fantastic. We concluded the appointment, and as I was leaving it hit me........... my original biopsy in early October indicated TWO malignant tumors on the prostate, the worst of the two was a Gleason of 3+4=7! I was confused. Before leaving, I got ahold of the doc in the hallway and asked him how there could be LESS cancer on the removed prostate than there was from the original biopsy?????? He indicated that the pinpoint nature of the sample needle sometimes shows more cancer than actually exists. Hell, this was incredibly GREAT news, so why question it? Bottom line, he told me the odds that any cancer escaped the prostaste were minimal to say the least.
However, that's not I am late in reporting to you all. While I was healing from the surgery, news of the condition of my good buddy Terry got worse and worse. He was diagnosed originally with symptoms indicating hepatitis. Well, it turned out he had a positive cancer test in his liver. And then they found cancer in his esophagus AND his stomach. Even as I was groggy in my hospital room I knew what this meant. To make matters even worse, they eventually discovered the cancer had spread to his pancreas. On the fourth day out of the hospital I violated every rule in the book and drove to see him at the hospital on Sunday night, December 17th. I was still in my freaking pajamas and lied to everyone who told me not to drive in my condition. I knew in my heart that if I didn't see him on that Sunday night, I'd never have a chance to speak to him again. When his step-son called me and told me Terry was awake, I ran like hell to Memorial Hospital in Hollywood to see him. And lucky I did. By Monday afternoon, he was already unconcious. His liver and other vital organs were progressively failing. By Wednesday morning, Terry passed away peacefully, without pain. People, this meant that my buddy Terry went from a picture of health as late as November 10th, to being dead from cancer all in the space of 6 or 7 weeks, on December 20th. I was devastated and yet, I had to recover from my own issues. The wake and funeral pretty much drained any reserve energy from me. The memorial service was held on Friday night. Time has been compressed and the past two weeks since my surgery feels like the space of a day. I joined Terry's wife, my very close friend, for Christmas dinner last night. You can only imagine how difficult this was for all of us.
I am exhausted and will stay home all day today doing absolutely NOTHING!
Don't get me wrong, I am happy things worked out very well for me. I was in tears of joy with the post-surgical report. But in retrospect I took a BIG chance driving only 4 days after surgery. Please don't do this at home. If I had had an accident, I might have really messed things up. As things were, every bump in the road was an adventure in discomfort. While I am grateful for having seen or spoken to my buddy one last time before his death, it was a pretty stupid thing to do.
I meet again with Dr. Leveillee again on February 3rd. I expect to be fully healed and ready for some tennis in another two to three weeks.
I am very relieved that all went well........ Based on my experience I would heartily recommend the DaVinci robotic proceedure provided that surgery is called for in your individual case.
Talk to you more later.