“Well,” he said, “I’m back.”

The procedure yesterday was totally uneventful.  I’ll refrain from a blow-by-blow account, but a few things float to the top of memory.

I had an audience; besides the doctor, I had his office tech and a guy from Medtronics, which makes the Prostiva™ device, in to see how his machine was working out in practice.  So far as I could tell, he’s sort of a travelling account rep, that goes around checking on the machines in his territory, much as the Coke deliveryman does the machines on his route.

(Medical TMI follows)

The procedure hurt—well, it probably hurt less than if I hadn’t gotten the sedatives and anesthetics, but it still hurt.  Having a metal probe with a needle inside it pushed up my urethra wasn’t any fun, but the real Do Not Want began when the doctor had to pull my penis sideways and down, so the antenna needle would punch through the urethral wall into my prostate at the correct angle.  Then I had to hang on while he left the needle in place for two minutes at a time, five times in five locations.  At least whatever burning smell there was, was contained inside me.  I don’t care to be put right off roast pork for several years while I get over it.  (BTDT when I was a teenager.  Back then it only took a few weeks, but I was more resilient then, and anyway my sinuses were so chronically blocked that I didn’t get the full effect.)

Mercifully, that part of it only took about fifteen minutes total:  five two-minute burns, plus a few seconds each time re-positioning for the next burn.  They were done by ten o’clock, and sent me out with a week’s worth of Levaquin against infection, a month’s worth of Detrol LA against bladder spasm, and a script for a month of pyridium against painful urination.  L had me home by 10:30.  I slept a fair amount of the day, only getting up (pretty often) to try to urinate; the surgical insult caused some spasm,so I felt like I had to go even when nothing was there.  (I didn’t drink enough and dehydrated a trifle, is mostly why.)  However, by this morning, and pushing a bunch of fluids, everything is working more or less as expected.  As predicted and hoped, I didn’t need a catheter.  Really, I’m feeling well enough that I might go to work tomorrow, saving another eight hours’ sick leave against the day I might really need it.

You will theorize yogurt-topped cappucino.  Fnord.