This blog post contains some explicit and graphic language and images. Reader's discretion is advised.
Last Thursday I went to the Hershey outpatient surgery center to have the stent removed that was placed in my right ureter last week Friday after my kidney stone was removed. The stent was placed to allow the ureter to heal properly after the trauma of an irritating stone in it. The procedure went very well. It was a piece of cake. I went into the surgery building at 11 am and walked out at 12:30 pm and went back to work! Of course, I didn't sleep well the night before --- filled with anxiety about having a tool-laden probe pushed up my penis and into the bladder while I am alert!! Yikes.
When they wheeled me into the operating room, there where four men there: a male RN, the resident and two assistants/techs. (My urologist, a very nice, pleasant woman, had not entered the room yet.) One of the assistants asked me my name and date of birth. I answered and he then asked me what I was to have done. "Why are you here?" he asked. In my own way of coping with my uneasiness about what was about to take place, decided to add some levity and replied: "I am supposed to have my penis enlarged," (thinking I may be able dupe them into doing a procedure that would be of some gain to me.???) Alas, the witty tech snapped back: "it shows here you are scheduled for a penis removal." That remark gave me pause, until we laughed - me, nervously. After agreeing that I was there for a stent removal the urologist came into the room and I decided to change the direction of discussion.
The procedure to remove the stent is called a flexible cystoscopy. The cystoscope, which includes a nice little light, TV camera and tiny clamp, is inserted through the urethra (urinary tract) into the bladder where the doctor looks around and grabs string attached to the stent.
Unlike my first two cystoscopies where I had general anesthesia, yesterday I had a local anesthesia, lidocaine, to help reduce the "discomfort" of a probe going up the penis, through the piss valve, past the prostate and into the bladder. I watched the video screen along with the doctor as the light, camera and clip journeyed along its merry way and as he spent about a minute - which seemed like five minutes - moving it about in the bladder to find the string at the end of the stent.
For some reason I tend to get chatty when I am about to have a procedure. I don't know why. But, as the urologist supervised the resident who was twirling around the scope searching for the string, I as yapping away. I made some comment about how tricky it is to find the string. At the same time, I was experiencing "mild" discomfort - akin to getting kicked in the testicles. I commented to the team that at least with patients under general anesthesia they don't have to listen to a their patter and critique. They agreed with me that was a benefit of general anesthesia. Dahh!
Here is an x-ray (not mine) showing a uretal stent -- kidney to bladder -- in place:
I was in recovery for 15 minutes. Got dressed and left. Went back to work. I learned lab results showed my stone was NOT a uric acid stone, as one urologist had guessed before it was extracted, but calcium oxalate, the most common type of stone. So I guess I can't blame chemo for this bout. I was told to drink plenty of fluids and limit my salt intake to help reduce risk of any more stones developing.
At the end of the procedure I was asked if I wanted a souvenir. At first I declined, but, curious about what I was carrying around with me for the week, quickly changed my mind and said "yes".
Here it is .... in living color ...
The "bladder end" of the stent with the retrieval string.
With that I will close the book on this chapter of my journey. As I wrote earlier, I know many of my readers do not share my fascination with these details. To my surprise, I did have a co-worker tell me this week that she especially liked that wrote about my treatments' specifics. So, if no one else appreciates this, I know of one reader that does.
I'm not sure why these anatomical minutia fascinate me. But, hey, I got to see the inside of my bladder!! Most of you haven't had that opportunity. I've been carrying around that bladder for 64+ years and never saw it's insides before last Thursday.
I have always been in such awe of all the organs, glands, muscles, bones, vessels so neatly packed in my "trunk". And I never get to see them ... and where are they exactly? ... and what do they do? And all of us carry all this stuff around with us everywhere we go. Every minute of our lives. And all of that stuff has work to do and does it well and efficiently ... most of the time. But when just one little part stops working, like my pancreas with a big honking tumor on it, you know something's wrong. But we really are not very good at reading our body's signals, like pain. When you deal with one of the body signals you learn quickly where that body part is and what it does and what is troubling it.
Like many of you readers, I at least had the benefit of watching chickens, pigs, pheasants, deer, fish, etc being butchered on the farm or field or lake. Hog butchering was especially interesting because they seemed to me to be the most like us --- guts-wise, that is. So although those of us with butchering experiences have an advantage over many who have never seen the inside of a hog, there seems to be never-ending amount of stuff to learn about our bodies.
I recall a wonderful 13-part television series that aired on PBS in the late 1970s called "The Body in Question"which piqued my interest in these matters. It was produced by BBC and presented and written by Dr. Jonathan Miller. I loved that show. He was an outstanding presenter. Perhaps some of you remember it. It is a highly entertaining series in which Miller considers the functioning of the body as a subject of private experience. He explores our attitudes towards our bodies, our astonishing ignorance of them, and our inability to read our body's signals. In the first episode he does "man on the street" interviews asking people where they thought certain organs were located and it was much more entertaining than Jay Leno. I wish I could watch it again but am unable to find it on Netflix or anywhere else. I hope it isn't lost forever.
Enough already. I release you from this.
Watch for another post soon about my oncology appointment on Friday.
