Retzius-Sparing Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy

User

Posted 08 Aug 2018 at 13:01

Franci, unless you have years and years of medical training & research behind you, I think you might eventually have to accept that the experts know more than you :-/

Mm that's why I always try and incudes current research or statements from leading institutions in my comments.

Your own quote is interesting re GP'S consultants can be be just as crap, the medical world is full of ego maniacs !

User

Posted 08 Aug 2018 at 13:04

Matron, when I say “my GP” I refer to an ever-changing group of transient and part-time doctors who man “the biggest surgery in Coventry”, open just four and a half days a week. It is rare to see the same one twice, not that until recently I visited the surgery very often!

Appointments have to be booked by phone on the day, and any non-urgent appointments have gone by 8.40. On-line appointments are available occasionally, often three weeks hence.

I need to be grateful to the one GP who ticked the PSA box on the phlebotomy form last November for the first time in seven years, but I am still annoyed by the GP who dismissed my request for him to carry out a DRE whilst on his couch in my underpants for something else with the words that still ring in my ears: “We don’t do that these days”. He has retreated back to the sub-continent and beyond the reach of the BMA’s complaints procedure.

I think in reply to my first ever post you suggested I might ‘have an attitude’, and that is why.

I am completely chilled about having cancer, probably because there is nothing wrong with me......😉

Cheers, John

Edited by member 09 Aug 2018 at 14:46 | Reason: Not specified

User

Posted 16 Aug 2018 at 15:20

I have my surgery on the 3rd September, reading this gave me something to laugh at, so thank you for that!

User

Posted 19 Aug 2018 at 17:16

Dear Blighty

I had robot prostatectomy on the 16th August and feel fine. Make sure you take plenty of laxatives as bloating/constipation were the worst problems in the first few days. I have just delivered twin aubergines and am much more comfortable!

Hope all goes well.

Pitchpole

User

Posted 20 Aug 2018 at 15:23

Blighty,

Best wishes for the 3rd.

As for Pitchpole's advice, I second the motion......

The condition of your lower bowels has a big effect on comfort levels and empty or nearly empty is the preferred state!

Nick

User

Posted 06 Sep 2018 at 07:14

September 2018: 3rd post-operative PSA test, at twelve weeks. PSA still “undetectable”. Am I “cured”? Although I am an extreme optimist, I’m not holding my breath.

User

Posted 06 Sep 2018 at 08:11

HI Bollinge

Good news with the PSA and long may it continue.

Personally I just take each result as it comes and don't concern myself with anything more. To quote the good book 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'.

Kevan

Edited by member 06 Sep 2018 at 08:12 | Reason: Not specified

User

Posted 06 Sep 2018 at 13:42

Congratulations - breathe easy for a few weeks again

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User

Posted 06 Sep 2018 at 14:28

Thank you Matron. My breathing has not been interrupted at all by the whole scenario from start to finish!

I have just left the Indian Oncologist who tells me I am cured! I am to have three-monthly PSA tests and that’s it. His ray-gun is staying in its holster - for now.........

So my breathing will still be uninterrupted, as I am not holding my breath.

Interestingly, he had the same Nomogram on his computer as I had on this here iPad. The prognosis was not as good as for the postulated organ-confined disease, but still breathing 96% fifteen years later excluding other nasties. He didn’t seem to know much about Gallium 88 scans, and said the inferior Choline scans have to be done in Birmingham. He was surprised when I told him you can get a Choline scan in India for £480: “I am Indian and I didn’t know that!”

I was a bit disappointed when I asked him what resolution my original mpMRI scan was which suggested Tommy the Tumour was organ-confined, and he said he didn’t know. “I am an oncologist and I rely on the radiologist to deal with things like that.” If it was my job I would make damn sure I knew something simple like that.

When I asked the ‘Specialist Prostate Nurse’ a few weeks ago what would happen to my continuing sperm production after my prostatectomy, she didn’t know. Maybe I am weeing tadpoles!

So although I am an eternal optimist, and am cured, I did say to Dr K**n: “I’m sure we’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when” but most likely in the oncology clinic at Walsgrave Hospital!

Keep calm and carry on. Keep breathing.

Cheers, John

Edited by member 06 Sep 2018 at 16:03 | Reason: Not specified

User

Posted 06 Sep 2018 at 15:40

Bollinge,

John, I knew we frequented the same hospital but it seems it will be left to me to complete the education of our oncologist, young Y****b. By the time you see him again, which I hope is very many years hence, he'll be older and wiser. He isn't yet a patch on his predecessor, who is enjoying ocean yachting in his retirement, which was well earned. He helped me with at times unorthodox treatment ideas that I threw at him over the eight years in which we had regular consultations. The young chap I have now does not yet have the self confidence to lock the NICE handbook in his desk drawer, when faced with an awkward auld codger like me and a track record that defies all expectations!

User

Posted 06 Sep 2018 at 15:53

Sometimes you try really hard to be unpleasant, don't you?

Having spent years becoming an oncologist, why would you expect him to learn the other team members' trades as well? He probably has a lot on his plate and less time for armchair medical training. Or since Galium 88 hasn't yet been invented, he didn't realise that you meant 68?

Not sure whether your query about sperm is a ssip-take or you are really naive? You had a vasectomy; your sperm now stays firmly in the epididymis from where it is simply re-absorbed into your body.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User

Posted 06 Sep 2018 at 16:19

I was not being unpleasant at all.

If I was a Consultant Oncologist I would expect to know the resolution of the MRI images I would be relying on so that I knew exactly where to point my ray-gun if and when required. I would also expect to be au fait with the latest scanning techniques, as this is a rapidly advancing field of medicine.

If I was a specialist nurse, I would expect to be able to answer a simple question like the one I posed.

The good doctor and I parted on perfectly good terms, I was seen on time, and I am cured. What’s not to like?

Cheers, John.

P.S. Matron, if we are being really pedantic, there are two ‘l’s in Gallium, whether 88, 68, 69 or whatever.

User

Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 09:45

Moderators why have you removed my post but not removed Bollinge’s racist narrative?

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User

Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 14:35

Originally Posted by: Online Community Member

Moderators why have you removed my post but not removed Bollinge’s racist narrative?

Matron, what in the world is racist about stating where a Consultant hails from? The NHS would collapse without foreign doctors and nurses.

When I phoned up the hospital to speak to Dr K**n’s secretary, the operator said “Which Dr K**n do you mean? We have seven here!”

Calm down dear!

Cheers, John.

User

Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 14:59

You continually push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. You never refer to your consultant surgeon as the 'White UK professor' or mention the white nurse or the Scottish GP or whatever - you only ever refer to people's ethnicity when they are from a minority group. Earlier in this thread, you refer to a GP 'going back to the sub-continent' which I take not to be a reference to Wales.

You also love to break the rules on naming medical practitioners - it is ridiculous to name the hospital, name the discipline and the ethnicity of the oncologist and then simply omit 2 letters from his 4-letter name.

Sir, you are a racist. The moderator who decided to remove my previous post simply because I said you were racist is either naive or has failed to recognise the underlying tone of your language. PCUK will probably ban me for a while but I cannot in conscience leave your odious posts unchallenged.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User

Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 15:05

I believe you hail from Yorkshire but I don’t hold that against you. “My” Professor is slightly tanned, but I have never had an affable conversation long enough to discuss his ethnicity with him. He’s too busy curing people.

I have been to 105 countries and have loved them all and their inhabitants.......

Edited by member 07 Sep 2018 at 17:41 | Reason: Not specified

User

Posted 08 Sep 2018 at 08:41

Why seek offence where none is intended? Far too much of that in this world.

Glad to hear that the news is good John and hope it continues for you.

Nick

User

Posted 25 Sep 2018 at 13:42

It’s fifteen weeks today since my prostatectomy, and I am as well as I have ever been, except for these little difficulties:

I have a slight dribble after each micturition, which is absorbed by my underpants and doesn’t show on my trousers, no pads required. I had an unexpected nocturnal emission (not of the kind enjoyed by teenage boys) about two weeks ago, but probably due to excess fluid consumption.

I have ended up with a micro-penis - and we have not had cold weather yet - which shows no sign of life other than as a flue for urine, daily Cialis has no effect. Going for the pump-action option!

PSA still undectable, but now seeking a second oncology opinion that may differ from the first one who told me “You are cured”, despite two lymph nodes being cancerous.

Anyway, no regrets, other than the seven year gap between PSA tests from 2010 till 2017. Did I mention that before? Sorry to be a bore. I’m not bitter!

Cheers, John.

Edited by member 25 Sep 2018 at 14:51 | Reason: Not specified

User

Posted 26 Sep 2018 at 07:03

Go for it! The pump action was what woke mine up!! Certainly wasn't getting any other action as my wife pissed off 6 months after my op. I suspect I have bored this forum with that topic before too! All good now though in all depts!!

User

Posted 26 Sep 2018 at 07:33

Her Loveliness, (my fiancée of 39 years) seems quite pleased, as she lost her libido three years ago after a total hysterectomy 😉

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