Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Return to Anesthesia

It's on.

Tomorrow I have a nuclear stress test at 7:00 a.m. (to satisfy my absolutely useless cardiologist, whom I've come to hate) and a go-see with my internist (whom I still like) at 3:45 p.m. It is my HOPE that both of them will immediately sign off on my upcoming surgery.

If, God willing, they do then a week from tomorrow I'll arrive at Mt. Sinai hospital here in Manhattan at 10:00 a.m. for a radical prostectomy performed by Dr. David Samadi, using the da Vinci surgical robot.



I can't think of anyone, among my male friends, better suited to this than me. Sex has become nothing but a bitter memory of how I routinely sold myself short over the years.

God has actually done me a big favor.

5 comments:

Bev Sykes said...

How do they handle prostatectomies these days. Are they "drive by" surgeries, like mammograms (stay in the hospital? Surely you don't need to stay in the hospital just because you had your breasts removed!), or do they give you actual "recovery" time.

JoyZeeBoy said...

Well, Bev, thanks to the wonders of modern insurance people no longer have to spend days, weeks or even hours recouperating from major surgery actually "in" a hospital. They've discovered that people probably do much better, on their own, home... alone.

My surgery will occur at noon. It will take about 90 minutes. I expect to be brought out of the chemically induced coma around 3:00 p.m. and taken from recovery to my "night ward" around 4:30 p.m.

If all goes well, I should be discharged early the next day, as soon as competent medical authority (or some insurance company assclown who hasn't got a fucking clue) decides that it's time for me to go.

Thank you, Henry Kaiser! Thank you, Richard Milhouse Nixon!

JoyZeeBoy said...

Oh, and for the record, when my ex, Chuck, had his prostate removed at New York/Cornell, back in 1992, he was in the hospital for an entire week. And they kept him heavily sedated the entire time. Not for the pain, but because he was such a pain in the ass they kept him drugged just to shut him up.

Bev Sykes said...

...which is probably why they're so anxious to get you outta there! :)
I hope you have in-home help lined up. I'm sure with all of your friends, you'll be inundated with volunteers.

JoyZeeBoy said...

Better than that. I don't get to leave New York. I'm being kidnapped by a friend and his wife to spend my first week with them in beautiful Queens, New York.

"New" Richard (so as not to be confused with "Old" Richard aka "The Kleen Kween") has ordered me to come home with him until they take the catheter out, probably at the beginning of the week following my surgery (October 19-20). Richard is a nursing instructor at New York-Presbyterian (formerly NY/Cornell).

Small world, ain't it?