I am scheduled to have my surgery to remove my prostate tomorrow. Currently I am scheduled to be the first patient to be operated on by Dr. Lee. I need to be at the hospital by 5:30 AM to go through admitting and preparation for the surgery. If everything goes well I should be out of surgery and in recovery before noon. I will have to spend tomorrow night (9/21/11) in the hospital but should be discharged on Thursday morning.
Ginny and I plan to drive to Philadelphia today and spend the night in a hotel near the hospital. Ginny will also spend tomorrow night in the hotel and then will drive me home on Thursday. Ginny plans on posting to this blog tomorrow as soon as I am out of surgery to let everyone know how things went.
Reflecting on the procedure for tomorrow I really don't have any anxiety about the actual surgery. Dr Lee has done over 4,000 of these operations and his success rate is extremely high. Also based on everything I have read, I don't anticipate that I will have much pain. I expect there will be some discomfort and I am sure that I certainly won't be the fastest 66 year old in Pennsylvania for a couple of months but the recovery should be pretty smooth.
My greatest anxiety is about how all of this will change my life style:
Will I have to wear a diaper the rest of my life?
What kind of sex life will I have?
Will they get all of the cancer, my future PSA scores will monitor this.
I am optimistic about all of these things but they still are lurking in the background.
One of the big bummers I had about my prostate was the assumption that I would not be able to donate blood in the future. I have always been a donor and looked upon it as my civic duty so I was not happy to see an end to my donating. Fortunately my friend Rob Beeson's wife, Laurie, did some research on this and found that if my tests show no signs of cancer a year after my surgery I will once again be able to donate blood.
Well, I am going out for my last run for at least two months and need to start packing. I look forward to talking to all of you on the other side.........................Gerry
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