Prostate Cancer

Going into the operation, I just wanted to get on with it, I just did not want to waste another hour really, just get down on that operating table and get it done. I think that was 4 o clock ish I can't remember, the next thing I knew, I think I had a total of 10 tubes going in or coming out or doing something useful, 10 tubes in me and I was in what they call the high dependency unit for 2 days where I really had very close one to one monitoring indeed which was very reassuring and I was sufficiently doped up, but I wasn't in any pain at all, uncomfortable at times yes but not in any pain.

So that wasn't a difficult time and I think 2 days, on the second morning, not the first morning after the op the night before but the next one after that I was offered did I want a bed bath. And I think the nurse, she was a middle aged nurse who had been an army nurse and she said 'Do you want a really strong bed bath?' I said 'Oh yes I feel filthy,' and at 5 o clock in the morning just a few days before Christmas I had the best wash I've ever had in my life (laughs) it felt wonderful, absolutely marvellous. So she sorted me out and a few hours after that I was out of the high dependency and into a room where a nurse was designated to look after me for the next day. And as the days went on the tubes came out and life became a bit more comfortable. And by the time, I was in hospital one week, came Christmas Eve, I was down to, from 10 tubes on the first night down to just the catheter and a tube coming out of a, to a waste bag, I forget what they call them.

A drain?

Yes a drain, taking the rubbish from where the wound, where the operation, that's right a drain, so I had the drain in just taking a bit of rubbish out from the op.

So the experience in hospital was good?

Yes it was, everybody was so, and especially of course when the surgeon came in on the 5th or 6th night and said 'The prostate is, we've caught it in time, it's been,' he said they carve it up and it hasn't reached the outer zone so you're not even in the margin area, it was all central. So that of course made you, you didn't mind how much discomfort you were in at that stage you were basically being told that you hadn't got it in your bones, you hadn't got it, they'd taken out the lymph nodes surrounding the prostate it wasn't there, it was contained all within the prostate. So at that stage he was delighted but that it looked as if it had been a complete success and caught in time and no further problems. But of course it was very uncomfortable for the first month, especially with the catheter and I got an infection in the wound and I got a bladder infection and those were quite uncomfortable but you don't mind that, once you've been told that it's all, you're in the clear. But it was pretty uncomfortable the month, as you no longer had an epidural which I'd had very, very good monitoring by the anaesthetist and the epidural certainly kept me very comfortable in hospital.

So you had an epidural before the operation?

No I think, I don't think I had, no I think that went in whilst I was under the general anaesthetic, I believe that I went in for the operation and the first things they did were fix up things like the epidural and a few tubes here and there and then I was into the surgeon. I was shaved by him, often I think before the nurse or someone else shaves you but he actually wanted to do his own shaving, get it absolutely where he wanted it (laughs) and the scar now 9 months on or so is rather disappointingly fading so I haven't got anything to show off. But it was the first month was quite uncomfy but we had very good, the nurse, the Distric

I found that you know, the hospital staff, the nursing staff, everybody was very kind and considerate and I felt extremely well and I had no worries about it. But people went out of their way to give me information which they, nothing was hidden, everything. I met the anaesthetist who gave a large number of anaesthetics for prostate surgery and I think, probably, at that time was giving more anaesthetics for prostate surgery than any other anaesthetist in the country. So we had a very friendly talk about it and you know, the problems with anaesthesia in prostate surgery, such as they were, and so I felt very reassured. Well, there was no pre-med, which I hadn't realised, so there were little things that slipped passed, I didn't realise that so far as he was concerned he didn't like his cases to have pre-med so I went down to the theatre quite wide awake. Then had the induction and the anaesthetist said to me, 'Well, this is just like champagne which you'll have drunk rather too much of it, it's a very pleasant feeling.' And I didn't altogether care for the feeling induced, of the feeling brought on by the induction, and I said, 'That champagne is bloody awful champagne' and if I hadn't come round those would have been my last words.

But was that with an injection?

That's right, yes. And then I woke up in intensive care.

And how was that?

Well, I found it much better than I expected. Everybody had talked to me about pain when you wake up and there wasn't a nurse who hadn't come in and sat down and said to me, 'Now I do want to warn you of that' and my surgeon had warned me of this and the anaesthetist. So when I went to sleep I was fully expecting to wake up in considerable pain but I woke up in discomfort, no more. And I had my, I could regulate the amount of analgesic I was getting so that if I had wanted more I could have had more but I didn't want any more. And then there were a massive number of drips going, of course, and oxygen, just the usual intensive care procedure. And a very, very pleasant male nurse was specialing me; he couldn't have been better and very efficient, I thought, forever regulating this and that and putting things into my line, what it was I have no idea.

So how long did it take for you to move back to a regular [ward], were you in a private room or regular ward?

I was in a private room and I was just over 24 hours in the intensive care and then went upstairs. I was still having problems with blood pressure and blood oxygenation because I'd bled during the surgery and I had a fair number of units of blood. But even when I got back to the ward, to my room, my haemoglobin was 7 so I had obviously had quite a biggish bleed.