Week 19

The countdown began in earnest last Tuesday, May 26. I took the last blood thinners before discontinuing them in advance of the surgery, which is next Wednesday, June 3, at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. OK, platelets, time to thicken up.

          I’m good to go. The pre-op examinations a week ago, last Friday, at Roswell Park confirmed it. A stoma nurse looked me over and marked an X on my stomach, just above the navel and to the right. The anethesiologist thought everything was OK. An EKG and a blood test showed nothing to worry about. And the surgeon, Dr. Khurshid Guru, the man who brought robotic surgery to Roswell Park, seemed satisfied that everything was in order.

          The major questions about the surgery were answered at the previous pre-op meeting with Dr. Guru, right before my heart problems showed up. The only surprise, to me, was his suggestion now that my hospital stay might be 10 days. Previously, I’d been told it would be six to eight days. One thing they’ll want to see is how soon I’ll be able to poop.

As for the surgery itself, most of the info I already knew. It’s going to last six hours. The bladder, prostate and a couple lymph nodes will be removed. A section of my small intestine, a piece of the ilium, will be transported, blood vessels and all, to hook up with my kidneys and serve as a reservoir which will drain through the stoma to an external pouch. Oh yes, and there will be stents helping to keep things open. My assignment – drink plenty of fluids to maintain the flow.

What did Dr. Guru think of the neo-bladder, the all-internal alternative about which my sister-in-law in Arizona had forwarded an Internet link. It’s a longer surgery and a longer recovery, he said, and it’s more appropriate for a younger patient. It takes a bigger piece of the intestine, which still wants to act like an intestine instead of a bladder, and then there are complications involved in making it all work. One fine day, I keep thinking, they’ll make new bladders with 3D printers, but that day isn’t here yet.

Meanwhile, health proxy Bill Finkelstein pressed one of his major complaints – being promised return phone calls and not getting them earlier this month when he wanted to find out the new date for the surgery so he could make arrangements to be there at the hospital. Dr. Guru explained that since the schedule was full, it was hard to find a time, but conceded that callbacks should have been made. My significant other, Monica Neuwirt, who also was there in that little examination room, contended that this was not the kind of thing that Dr. Guru should be concerned with. Well, yes and no. Does everybody have these problems?