As noted in my last blog, I was scheduled for prostate surgery. I was told to be at the hospital at 1:30 that afternoon. The surgery was as an outpatient and I was supposed to be able to go home in a few hours. I could eat and drink only up until midnight the night before. I got to the hospital nervous and hungry. Thirsty, too.

The surgery was to start at 4:30 that afternoon. Talking to the check-in nurse, I found out that my urologist had several patients before me that he was operating on. I was to be the last. I hoped he was not going to be too tired. But, I thought, he should have lots of practice by the time he gets to me. My wife and I waited in the waiting room for about an hour before they called us back.

They put us in a staging area. It was a room with three walls and a gurney. They wanted me to get undressed and put on a blow-up gown. That gown kept my wife and I occupied for quite a while. There was a blower attached to the wall with a hose that plugs into the gown. The blower has a heat setting and the gown is like a wearable air-conditioner. Pretty neat. Only problem was that the inside was plastic coated and it kept sticking to my skin.

Then the nurse came in. Next was the anesthesiologist. He put some stuff in my IV and talked to me for a minute. A few others came and started pushing my gurney down the hall. I remember going through some swinging doors.

The next thing I know I wake up in a big room with gurneys packed side-by-side. I had a new catheter in me. This one was huge! It was about 3/8 inch in diameter.

It was a busy room. Nurses moving back and forth. People moaning and groaning. One nurse stood out. She had a big mouth. She kept complaining about how there were too many patients. Then she comes to my gurney and asks how I am. She shoots something into my IV bag and then walks away. Wow, what a bitch.

I layed there for about a half hour, listening to the nurse complain. When I woke up, i felt pretty good. No pain at all. But as time went on, I started hurting. I thought I was going to die. I could barely move. None of the nurses were paying me any attention. Finally I got the attention of the loud mouthed nurse wen she finally hung up the telephone. She had been complaining to someone about being overworked.

She came over to my gurney and asked what was wrong. I told her I hurt. She asked if it was bad. Duh. Then she had the audacity to ask me why I did not tell anyone sooner, yadda, yadda, yadda. As if I knew what I was supposed to do right out of surgery. Bitch. She grapped some syringes of pain killer and starts injecting them into my IV tube. I seconds I felt better and collapsed on the gurney as the pain subsided. I felt great until I started feeling woozy and lightheaded. I thought I was going to die from an overdose of pain killer. It did not help that I overheard the nurse admit to someone else that she did not know how many shots of pain killer she gave me.

Well, instead of going home that night, I spent the night in the hospital. My doctor prescribed Flowmax to be started that evening. But, the hospital never got those orders. I spent a restless night. I wanted to get home, but I was still half durgged from the pain killer.

My doctor came by first thing in the morning. I was not happy. Neither was he. He said that the hospital needlessly kept three of his patients overnight. Unfortunately, because I missed starting the Flomax treatment on schedule, the doctor pushed back removing the catheter. It was supposed to come out Friday. Now, I had to wait until Monday!

Other than the nurse in post-op screwing up, my surgery was uneventful. I was in no pain. I could move around reasonably well, except for that garden hose of a catheter stuck in me. I had a few bloody discharges when I urinated, but not very much. They were mostly small clumps that came out with the urine.

Monday finally came and I was at the doctor's office first thing. It was such a relief to get the catheter out. I could urinate on my own! There is nothing like the simple pleasures in life.