Two weeks since my last retirement blog. I had expected to write the follow-up before this but it’s a mark of how below par I have been these last few days and reduced to feeling a bit sorry for myself by my TURP operation on the 6th of this month.
I had convinced myself that the TURP (operation on my prostate) was going to be a lot less debilitating than my colon cancer op. Well it wasn’t as bad but I have to say that was an over-optimistic point of view. I have suffered and most of this suffering (not to gloss-over the reality) has been with by-passing. If you don’t know what this is, look it up, because I’m finding it hard to write about.
So two weeks of misery have brought me to the day before the procedure to remove my catheter. If this goes well then the quality of my life from hence forth will be decent. If they can’t take it out then that quality will be, as I say, an on-going, perpetual misery. An indefinite programme of living with a catheter. Great. I suppose in less than 24 hours I will know one way or the other and, I imagine, the next words I write and you read will tell me which prize I’ve won.
And now just over one week later, it’s (the catheter) gone permanently or temporarily, one can only wonder. I am reminded of the words of Winston Churchill – this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end but it is the perhaps the end of the beginning. True the catheter that I have lived with for nearly a year is gone, but I’ve learned to be cautious.
I went to the hospital on Tuesday to have it removed and pretty much the first thing I did, after removal, was wet myself (and I’m not talking dribbles or leakage either) having absolutely no control over my bodily functions at that point. Not great but hardly surprising I suppose given my bladder hasn’t had to make these decisions for over 10 months.
The challenge is to re-educate my bladder. I need to push the interval between pees to make my bladder stronger but not to the extent of leaving it too late and of just completely losing control. And that’s where I’m at right now (on Thursday), just trying to make sense of it all. Who’d be a control freak at times like these?
I’m sure you’re fascinated to read all this about how the retirement year 2023 has turned out. As I say there’s a way to go yet and I’ll be sure to keep you informed. First, the physical and psychological basics and then the challenge of trying to put all the parts of my retirement life back together again. Can it be done? Time will tell.