December 28
A phone call asking if I can be available for a clinical consultation tomorrow at 1030. What else does one do between Christmas and the New Year apart from eat mince pies so I might as well cheer myself up and discuss my prostate? I call my prostate scribblings "Living with my Lurking Lump"!
December 29
Well prostates can be interesting, very interesting it appears, and I am now part of the Transperineal Biopsy Evaluation (TRANSLATE) project which is aimed at identifying the most effective way to undertake prostate biopsies. Generally, this procedure is taken through the wall of the anus and carries with it the risk of infection but they are trying another method and all of this is under the supervision of the Professor of Urology at the Hospital. And indeed it was the great man himself who called and spent twenty-five minutes explaining in great detail what it all entails so really feeling that people really care about this condition and those of us who are experiencing it.
January 18 2022
Today had the delightful experience of being effectively buggered by a charming Spanish doctor. It transpires that she is working in the hospital as part of a European wide-exchange programme and today had the delightful job of doing my biopsy. As she explained I was merely undergoing the kind of experience which many women suffer in child-birth with my legs held up in stirrups which she inserted an ultra-sound probe into my anus, thus enabling her to target exact areas of likely cancerous growth in my prostate.
If this sounds ghoulish and embarrassing, well get over it. Think about this young doctor doing this to complete strangers: think of her feelings and accept that she is simply undertaking procedures which might just save one’s life.
Actually the whole experience was quite remarkable because of the people I met in what was a period of just 54 minutes from entering the car park to paying to leave. All my details were taken by R, a Ugandan nurse who has worked here for eight years and who gave me quite the most painless injection I have ever received. I then met a very determined T who had cycled eight miles to work at 06:00 as she does every day - except that today was -3C.
Then there was L** who gently talked to me whilst Dr. C** did the biopsy.
Like everyone else who looked after me, she exuded a simple, re-assuring manner which meant that any embarrassment was soon forgotten amidst the professional manner of this multi-national team. So, pardon my reaction of ‘Stuff you, Nigel Fuggwit’ because without caring people like her and other foreign medics, we would be a damned sight worse off.
Which I felt when immediately after the session as all I could do was piss a thick bloody liquid but without pain. All part of the post-procedural process according to the copious notes which tell me I will do this for the next week or so.
January 24
Still have blood tinged urine but more concerned about the mechanics of enjoyed marital relations with my lovely wife. As predicted my semen is also very bloody and apparently the prostate has to be cleared out. So simply can only resort to good old juvenile masturbation which does little to lift the spirits as I ejaculate red-brown semen.
