"This won't hurt, honest..." ARRGGGHH!
I hate doctors. They're liars. When I asked about the surgical procedure on my bladder and whether it would hurt afterwards, they flashed me glazed smiles and said "no, just a little discomfort maybe."
"A little discomfort" turned out to be three days of feeling like my lower abdomen had been driven over at speed by an 18-wheeler, then stamped on by entire stadium full of rioting British soccer fans.
Mind you there were mitigating circumstances. Most bladder surgery is done in a non-invasive fashion, i.e. with everything required inserted up your wee-hole as against via an incision. In my case the little CCTV cameras they use so they can see what they're doing didn't work. One, two, three and four all failed.
Mercifully number 5 produced a good picture but by this time nearly an hour had elapsed on a procedure that shouldn't take longer than 10 minutes. Hence a lot more bruising, bashing, scraping and tweaking than Mike Tyson's face received during his entire boxing career.
I had chosen a spinal (epidural) anaesthetic which was great in one way, as I didn't get the hangover associated with a GA. But it meant I was wide awake to hear all the four-letter words and curses used by the surgeons when the succession of camera gizmos proved useless. I learned a few new ones, too; the head surgeon was African and the number 2 was from the East Indian sub-continent, so I can now swear fluently in at least one Nigerian and one Bangladeshi language.
And when my bottom half regained consciousness, oh, whoops. Did that ever hurt.
Anyway on to funnier things and click here for an anecdote about bladder cancer treatment that had me rolling around laughing. It's from fellow Cancer Blogger David Ferdinando and his My Bladder Cancer Journey - take a look at that blog, it's excellent and very informative about this increasingly common disease.
Only four weeks to go now and I start my immunotherapy treatments. The doctors say they don't hurt, either ... yes, right...
"A little discomfort" turned out to be three days of feeling like my lower abdomen had been driven over at speed by an 18-wheeler, then stamped on by entire stadium full of rioting British soccer fans.
Mind you there were mitigating circumstances. Most bladder surgery is done in a non-invasive fashion, i.e. with everything required inserted up your wee-hole as against via an incision. In my case the little CCTV cameras they use so they can see what they're doing didn't work. One, two, three and four all failed.
Mercifully number 5 produced a good picture but by this time nearly an hour had elapsed on a procedure that shouldn't take longer than 10 minutes. Hence a lot more bruising, bashing, scraping and tweaking than Mike Tyson's face received during his entire boxing career.
I had chosen a spinal (epidural) anaesthetic which was great in one way, as I didn't get the hangover associated with a GA. But it meant I was wide awake to hear all the four-letter words and curses used by the surgeons when the succession of camera gizmos proved useless. I learned a few new ones, too; the head surgeon was African and the number 2 was from the East Indian sub-continent, so I can now swear fluently in at least one Nigerian and one Bangladeshi language.
And when my bottom half regained consciousness, oh, whoops. Did that ever hurt.
Anyway on to funnier things and click here for an anecdote about bladder cancer treatment that had me rolling around laughing. It's from fellow Cancer Blogger David Ferdinando and his My Bladder Cancer Journey - take a look at that blog, it's excellent and very informative about this increasingly common disease.
Only four weeks to go now and I start my immunotherapy treatments. The doctors say they don't hurt, either ... yes, right...
posted by Suzan St Maur @ 6:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home