ON BEING HACKED.

I’ve been ‘hacked’. No not by the Antipodean press baron but by a rather more skilful operator which proves as far as I’m concerned that the sword (actually scalpel) is mightier than the pen (probably laptop) any day.

It was Independence Day, July 4th, and we entered the building at 7.45 am as instructed. The surgeon arrived in his linen suit (no hint of golfing kit thank God) and was soon poring over my file. He was the sort of guy who didn’t look at you when he spoke to you but I knew that he knew all about me or that part of me he was planning to remove. He explained again the details of the task in hand which seemed an unnecessary step as I’d made the decision and didn’t really needed to be reminded that there was say a 2% chance of death or a 40% chance of infertility or that I’d have to spend the rest of my life in nappies. I’d been through all that and just wanted the man to get out his instruments and get on with the job. The paper work has to be done and I had to sign my consent. I didn’t get any written guarantee in exchange.

The preparation area is a room without a view or a bed. The Kiwi anaesthetist arrived unshaven and more casual than the surgeon had been and asked the questions. Had I enjoyed the full English this morning was how he questioned the nil by mouth requirement? His bed side manner cleverly reflected that of his next patient and besides there wasn’t a bed anyway. I slipped into the backless gown with the hospital logo splattered all over it like a watermark. Another young medic appeared and we shook hands (I shook hands with all those I met that morning. Manners maketh man and my mother would have been proud of me). We joked about steady hands and he reassured me that because he’d been on call over the weekend he hadn’t been able to touch a drop. There would be no shake in his fingers that Monday morning.

The trolley arrived and at about a quarter to nine I was wheeled off for surgery. The antechamber was where the Kiwi and his side kick gave me mine and before I could say “Actually I’d rather like to keep my prostate…..” I was out of it.

They took about four and a half hours. I cannot begin to understand the sort of skill with which they cut their way into and around the area. I cannot conceive the fine detail and precision that the team employed to do the task. Always one for a rather broad brush approach, I’d be as cack-handed as a ham-fisted giant in a doll’s house. I think I remember the recovery room and the talk of dogs.

“I’ve got a little Jack Russell,” I think I said but I couldn’t be sure. The team had all seen exactly what I’d got and none of them tried to correct me.

Wheeled into the urology ward with its six curtain lined cubicles, I was slotted in between two guys whose kidneys had let them down big time. I came round with more tubes than the Central Line and an oxygen mask that made me think I was flying off somewhere. I was. LaLa Land was where I was headed and the potent cocktail of anaesthetic and morphine took me off to levels that a sixties pop star would have paid good money for.

It was my left hand that worried me the most. It was swollen like an inflated rubber glove and full of pins and needles. Apparently the operation fills you up with air so I wasn’t having a heart attack. It was just full of wind. The surgeon came to see me and he looked really pleased with his morning’s work.

“It was a big one,” he said and I hoped that all the others in the ward had heard the news. “Big ones” is a term to be proud off when the talk is about anything to do with a bloke’s nether regions. I would have patted myself on my backless back if I could have done.

The tubes are taken away one by one until you’re left with the one that’s been inserted up your penis. It really is worse than a dirty joke. Not only have they taken away the gland that produces your off spring, they also shove a plastic pipe up the end of your Willy just to let you know that the job’s been done. It does I suppose negate the need to get up four or five times during the night but there are times lying there when you think to yourself what would be better, a quick trot to the loo down the corridor or a piece of plastic tube stuck up your todger? I’m afraid it’s all part of the treatment and when you buy in for the op, the tubes and the attractive Velcro tapes and 500 ml capacity Simpla bag with bottom tap are the Nectar points on offer.

The nurses that come and go are the salt of the earth. Theirs is not a glamorous job particularly having to deal with men’s leaks. One minute they may be administering a sip of water via another plastic tube into your mouth, the next inserting two suppositories designed to cause a motion.

My two were pushed into place on the second morning. I lay on my side with the thin curtain between me and the watching world. “Keep them there for twenty minutes”, said the green uniformed nurse in her tight latex gloves. Twenty minutes! It took about three before both of them shot out with a deafening and painful fart that mercifully hid the ricochet of the two medicinal torpedoes as they bounced off the thin curtain and scudded off along the ward floor to lie in dormant potency under some radiator. The thorough Polish polisher would find them the next day as she went about her cleaning shift.

In on Monday, out on Wednesday morning and back home. I’m the lucky one. Those that remain are planning their own escapes but sadly the only way out is to get a pink ticket as a result of the morning visit. The daily doctor was a smart young female with a stylish dress sense and bedside manner that would sit happily at any cocktail party. The guy next door gave her a lot of lip about how she’d kept him in and when was she going to sort out what happened next. She took control and in front of her team of four others took a firm stance. “You’ve just come out of intensive care and your kidneys are on the mend. We need to get your blood sugar count down before we can move you to the next stage. You have been very poorly.” The news wasn’t acceptable. The patient had lost his. He wanted to go home. I suspected that if he’d been allowed to go and they had unplugged him from his various support systems, he would have gone home for ever. The young doctor didn’t say it like that but she was firm.

Next in line, by comparison my chat with her was a social nicety. I told her about the farting episode and she smiled and dismissed me with a “Well done” and a look that not many years ago may have prompted a question of “What time do you get off work?”

Home is the best medicine. Sadly we don’t have an inexhaustible supply of on tap morphine and there is no one to ask you that bedside question, “On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?” “Twelve” is a good call and in hospital it gets you the attention you need. At home the care you get is equal to the care you need. You can’t fool your other half into thinking that you really are not very well but you try anyway. Paracetamol and cups of tea, elderflower and “Why not go up to bed?” are the new disciples. The discomfort, the pain and the indignity of the whole procedure rack you with self sympathy but your other half soon reminds you that child birth comes with a few unpleasant twinges. You pull yourself together. Grin and bare it.

Messages of encouragement flood in from those that love you and those that care and that in its self helps the healing process. That’s what friends are for and you hope that you can be as thoughtful when the tables are turned.

The tubes, those bloody tubes, come out on Thursday, eleven days after the op, and then the real process gets going, living a full and healthy life free from cancer. That will make all the pain and tears (yes there were tears on getting home) worth it.

The first visits from friends are always a joy. One who has been through the whole thing himself has been a great profit. Two others arrived and bought me some porn. “Apparently you need to get things moving as soon as possible”, they say with smutty school boy relish. It really does hurt when I laugh out loud but it will serve me right.

I’ll keep you posted.