Thanksgiving 2017 I got sent to the ER for a possible accidental overdose of blood pressure medicine I'd just started. Which came to nothing, but they diagnosed severe urinary retention (had just been living with that & the incontinence for a year or two) and admitted me.
Did some scans (prostate ~100g, PSA normal), installed an indwelling catheter. Cystoscopy a month later, everything OK but by then I couldn't pee without the catheter so have lived with that ever since. Flomax nearly killed me, couldn't afford the alternative, finasteride to all appearances just made my beard grow faster? but have been taken off that in anticipation of this procedure.
A local urologist broached the subject of "the roto-rooter operation", but didn't press me since except for inconvenience I tolerate the catheter very well ... aside the monthly agony of having it removed & replaced - opiates never taken after a minor surgery in January had zero effect.
Having done my homework I wished once that someone closer than Oklahoma University or Baylor offered HoLEP. "Oh, Dr Barnes at KU Med (in Kansas City) does that, I'd be glad to refer you." So there you are. They're all trained on their $2M DaVinci machines, HoLEP isn't even mentioned on the website except almost as an afterthought on one page where her info appears.
Didn't even ask how many she has done (in two-plus years). Doesn't matter, I hope - adding $34 a month to Medigap so it covers out-of-network, booking a motel for one night and renting a car to spare my old truck is all I can afford anyway, let alone haring off to Indiana or Rochester. Fingers crossed that even a workmanlike HoLEP is preferable to any TURP.
Scariest part is that I've never had anything but very local anesthetic twice in my 73 years plus a thoroughly unpleasant nerve block for minor surgery on one arm (also dental anesthesia, which just doesn't work). So general it is, guess if that doesn't kill me I can survive the HoLEP and will report back.
----Plainsman
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...