So here we are just over three weeks into to that mysterious world known as post-op TURP. I had no idea what to expect as, like most people in this position, I’ve never been here before (and hope never to be in it again). There’s a definite absence of people professional or otherwise to ask for advice. Just the simple kind – is this normal, what should I do if such and such happens, should I worry about this or that? You know the kind of thing.
I suppose in the olden days I would have been able to call my GP, even make an appointment to see a GP, But with the current state of the health service such options do not exist. You wait for what seem like days for them to answer the phone and when they eventually answer you are told the next available appointment is three weeks away. This not the kind of advice I need. Of course there’s always Google, which does help but so often you’re wading through contradictory advice from one site to the next.
So I call the hospital and receive the standard advice regardless of the actual problem – drink more water. When the problem is peeing too much this feels like contradictory advice. Anyway that broadly is the context and against this backdrop I continue the uphill struggle of trying to resurrect my pre-op life. A return to normality.
Tantalisingly there are times when this seems to be happening but other times when that feeling of wading through treacle seems much more apposite. On a positive note we managed a trip down to Derbyshire. Mostly this went well apart from one ‘accident’. The problem is one ‘accident’ lingers in the memory a lot longer than the other days of success. It was ever thus, with me at least.
I’m counting writing this blog as a kind of success. I’m only writing it about once every two or three weeks as opposed to the two or three a week that used (with podcast) to be the norm but still it’s vaguely normal and I’m regarding it as an achievement.
Which is more than I can say for the other two areas that used to make up my retirement life – music and the vineyard. The vineyard is too complicated to describe here. Maybe I’ll write a separate vineyard blog about the current state of affairs.
The music, well that started to raise its head until I played the recording I had made to a so-called friend and he said, quote, turn it off, it’s terrible. That knocked my confidence such that I haven’t been back to the music in any form since. Not what my fragile, mental health needed. Maybe God or whoever sent this as some kind of challenge. If s/he did I can only say please don’t do it again, I don’t need it and it doesn’t help my confidence.
Which largely, post TURP and after removal of the catheter, has a rather more basic flavour to it. Namely how do I balance the need to drink a lot of water with the goal of not peeing so often? This dear friends is the nature of my dilemmas as I write this. Watch this space for more thrilling details of my retirement life throughout the year 2023. So far at least.