Interesting Week.
Interesting week.
Friday I had my office visit with my urological surgeon.
After a discussing of my urinary history, frequent UTI’s (urinary tract infections),frequent bathroom trips as night, etc. and that I may soon have to go back into some type of chemo program after my PET scan next Tuesday, he proposed we “dilate” the stricture in my urinary tract.
Dilation has a 50-50 chance (I’m not happy with the results of playing the odd’s with medical stuff these days) of permanently fixing my problem. Does not require surgery or the long recovery time that goes with it.
So I say “when can we do this?” He smiles and says, today.
I find my grasp of the English language slipping away with my older age, as he told me there would be a “minor amount of pain” involved. My understanding of what minor pain meant and what I experience was a complete disconnect. I have no desire to experience minor pain again!
He injected a numbing agent into my urinary tract. Then proceeded to try to get a balloon through the urinary stricture.
It was a no go.
But we was not deterred, then he inserted the camera back into my urinary tract and proceeded to feed a wire through the narrowing, then successively pushed larger and larger sheathes over the wire through the narrowing to widen it further.
The numbing agent was long worn off by this time.
Then he reinserted the balloon device next to the camera device (yes side by side through the urinary tract) and finally got the balloon through the narrowing.
At one point there was the doctor and 2 assistants tugging, twisting and pushing things around to get them to feed properly and get them through the stricture.
All the while saying things like, take deep breaths, relax, lay back, stop clinching up. Kinda reminded me of the stuff they told us when I attended the birthing classes with Janet so many years ago.
THEN he filled the balloon with water, which was quite painful and intended to cause “micro tears” in the scar tissue. Let me tell you, it did indeed do that.
Then he left the room for 10 minutes or so to let the procedure work. The pain actually reduced a lot before he returned. I guess it finished “micro tearing” the scar tissue.
He then examined the inside of my bladder and noticed small hernia’s, which are common for a bladder that has to work hard to pass like through a stricture.
Bottom line, no surgery and instead of taking a few minutes to empty my bladder in now takes between 10 and 15 seconds.
So my “office visit” turned into a “procedure”.
Instead of trying to wrangle a surgery with recovery around my upcoming oncology schedule. I am repaired/done with my urinary worries.
As we were leaving, my wife indicated she had never been so happy to be a woman after observing the 90 minutes of procedure she had just witnessed.
I am now free and clear to do another round of chemo if it is required without concern of again occluding my urinary tract.
He told me that my bladder has been trained to squeeze very hard. Basically for a while I will be able to knock empty pop cans off a wall at 10 ft. But in time my bladder will retrain and things will become more normal.
There is expected to be a tiny amount of pain for a few days, but that sure beats running around with two catheters for a few weeks!
So this coming Tuesday I will get my PET scan, if it is negative I will be in remission! If it is positive we look at more options.
Anyway, was a nice rainy day here at the coast. A good one to rest and look out the window guilt free from yard work.
Hope everyone is enjoying their Autumn season, had a great summer and has a great week coming up!
bryants cancer journey and thoughts 