Hooray! Hooray! The First of May!

Hooray! Hooray! The First of May! Outdoor intercourse starts today!
Okay, now that I've got that off my chest -
It is indeed the first of May. Rick and I were awake at four-something, when Leilani the nurse brought him two more Vicodin, and now he is off to dreamland. He is experiencing pain, but the Vicodin lets him sleep.
Pain is relative. The pain after a trans urethral resection is genuine, and he did say he didn't sleep much during the night, but we are comparing this to the pain he felt after his last two surgeries, the prostatectomy in 1998, and the hernia repair in 2005. Both of those were incision surgeries, or, as the anesthetist said, the sort of surgery where “you feel like you've lost a knife fight.” The trans urethral resection (hereinafter referred to as “TUR”) is a whole 'nother kind of surgery.
I have thought several times through this process that there are similarities to when I was having babies. It is backwards: I am the one standing here in relatively good pain-free condition while my spouse goes through the pain and the doctors and nurses are snooping around his normally private parts. Also, while both of us had something that had to come out of our abdomens, at the end of the process I had a baby, whereas Rick now does not have a tumor.
What is pretty much the same is that those normally private parts become public property. Forget modesty. Forget discretion. Ain't no such a thing at times like this.
Having said that, I hope you are ready to read what a TUR is, at least as I imagine it. Guys, you might want to cross your legs.
A tube is inserted up the penis, all the way up the urethra to the bladder. This tube has an exterior diameter of 1/4” to 3/8” tops, which makes the rest of what goes on more amazing to me. Up the tube goes a camera, and a wire loop that is electrified – that is the carving tool.
How do they get these things in there, and up there? Beats me, but it is clear that they do.
Once all this equipment has gone up the tube into the bladder, the camera can look around, the carving device can slice up the tumor and also take biopsies of other areas of the bladder, and then the detritus is flushed out.
Rick was saying this morning that he wondered what the tumor looked like. “Probably looked like dandruff by the time Doc Lilly had it carved up and got it out of there,” he said.
After the work has been done inside the bladder, the equipment is removed and the catheter in the urethra becomes a channel for flushing out the bladder, removing blood from the incisions, and urine as it is produced.
OK, Rick is awake and has ordered breakfast, and I am crashing now. Mo' later.

Later: Doc Lilly, the urologist, came by and checked Rick out. He was very pleased with how the surgery went and how Rick is coming along. He said the tumor was “very broad based,” meaning, I think, that it took up a lot of space on the bladder wall, so it was difficult to get the tumor out without going through the bladder wall. He is still feeling good that he managed to do that successfully. I told Rick that when Doc Lilly spoke to me on the phone right after the surgery, he sounded like he felt he'd really nailed it. Kind of like how we used to feel when we came offstage after a really good set.
He took the catheter out, and told Rick to eat breakfast and go home! Yay! He wants Rick back next Thursday for a follow up appointment.
Of course this going home is all dependent on Rick's ability to pee independently.
The doctor said that all the tumor that was flushed out was sent to the pathologist, and we will discuss the results of pathology testing and make our plans accordingly next Thursday. The question is, how pathological was it? Doc Lilly said he was pretty sure it was cancer, based on how the tumor looked and cells found in Rick's urine, but this will be the first time the actual tumor cells are examined.
It is important at these times to have a sense of tumor.
(pause)
Rick is having breakfast now. He was up and walking around for a while, and then had a faint/nausea spell, but I guess that's normal considering that he's been through general anesthesia, surgery, and a few narcotic pills. No fast moves would be advisable.
OK, that's the early morning report. More later, I'm sure.
***
Swine flu
Being in the hospital when everyone is completely freaked out about swine flu is an interesting experience. Rick had a faint spell – he didn't pass out, but he did become clammy and nauseated and felt faint for a few minutes. Leah, the nurse, quizzed him: do you feel like you're coming down with a cold? Any flu-like symptoms?
No, just the fallout from surgery.
Yesterday the intake nurse told us that they had seen one case of swine flu at this hospital, and there were three cases known in Seattle. “Tomorrow there'll be a hundred,” she said.
Schools are closing all over; the World Health Organization has declared a level 5 alert and told countries to put their pandemic prevention and control protocols to work.
This hospital has antibacterial gel dispensers posted everywhere: by elevators, at the door to every room. There are also face masks available. I've been washing and gelling my hands so frequently that the skin feels almost crispy, or at least uncomfortably dried out.
It is interesting to me to see people so diverted by this combination of hysteria and practical considerations. Of course Rick and I have other things diverting us, other claims on our attention, so the swine flu seems not too important to us. Kind of like my computer dying and my credit cards being stolen. Normally these things would have me upset. At this time these things are annoying, but not central. Rick and his health are central. Perhaps swine flu will seem more important as time goes by.
Or perhaps, as a joke that came in the email the other day said, I'm not more patient and calm, I just don't give a shit.