Men’s Health Blog

He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—”The horror! The horror!”
– Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The steri-strips finally fell off and clothing is a lot more comfortable. There’s still some pain, but not too bad. That means I can wear my pants buttoned and zipped, which is good because I got to go to federal court on a case this past week and had to dress out two days.

My six-week layover has now been finished officially for a week. I originally thought that I’d be able to start getting back in shape after that, but eventually reality manages to knock it’s way through my head. Once the six weeks was over, I was able to start getting ready to get in shape. I can start lifting things beyond my post-op limit of 10 pounds, and I can start walking farther than a couple of blocks, but that’s about it.

Whup, I can take a couple of flights of stairs as well.

As far as my dirty habits go, things are still as dead as Jay Leno’s monologue. I’m not too happy about that. Yeah, it takes a while to recover potency after a prostatectomy, but there’re always those stories about some guy who was getting things on two weeks after the surgery. My luck just doesn’t run that way, reckon.

There are phases and levels to the rehabilitation. So far the next couple months I get to mildly build up strength and stamina, with the emphasis on stamina. About the most strenuous thing I’ll be able to do is walk. Maybe in March I’ll be able to get on the bike for leisurely rides around the park, but I’m not counting on it yet. I am hoping on getting into a gym the first of April, and maybe start bike commuting again. I’ve lost about 10# since the surgery. Most of that was off my paunch, but my thighs are also slimmer so I’m figuring I dropped muscle mass there. Likely, since I didn’t even put in 500 miles on the bike last year.

There’s a gym near work that might do the trick. Being downtown, it’s a typical yuppy meat market, but I get off early enough I should manage to miss that crowd most days. It’s convenient to work, and location is going to be critical. The idea is to go directly after work. Since it’s two and a half blocks away, the location works. The only other gym around there is a Y, and I’m still carrying a jones against them for screwing over Kristen.

No gyms in the area of the apartment that are options, so the one near work looks like “it.”

That leads into the question of our annual summer week with the grand kid. We’ve been taking her for at least a week for about the last 10 years and subverting her, introducing her to concepts like “grandpa watching the news is more important than that “Power Puff Girl” DVD you watched 18,000 times since breakfast,” barbecuing, camping, canoe floating, diamond mining, bike riding, looking at dead Egyptians and just getting dirty. Last year we went on a Katy Trail trip, combining bike riding and camping. It was a great idea in theory, but considering it was done with a 12-year old on her first road bike, a crazy woman and a guy with a bleeding apple in his ass, well, it wasn’t a very smart idea.

But we learned from it. The question now is will I be in shape to do it? Last year we only rode 108 miles total, and other than my huge prostate bleeding from a recent biopsy I was in pretty good shape. I have no idea how long it will take to get built up again. We might have to do a late trip, maybe mid-August, which is always dicey around here. The temps could easily be over 90 the entire trip. I don’t know if we’d be able to bail her from school in September or not. If I stayed with the regimen, I would be in shape then. Tentatively, I’m looking at mid-July right now. That would give me three months to build my legs back up and develop some stamina.

Went in to the urologist for a follow-up this past Wednesday. I’m on target for recovery. The incontinence is manageable; I could be in pads most of the time, but days I take the bus (or have to be in court) I diaper up. I need to keep practicing my Kegels (up to five seconds hold time. Ten reps per set; four sets per day).

The sensations I’ve been feeling in the Chief Justice are part of the “healing process.” The “itchy numbness” has decreased, and is related to the nerves getting their stuff together. The “12-year old hard on” feeling is normal, and is due to the nerves again.

Unfortunately, the impotence is normal and has it’s own time table. Even with a 20 mg dose of Cialis, nada. Mistah Kurtz, he dead. But I’m still dosing weekly with it in hopes of a miracle on the order of Christ’s resurrection.

I initially met with a rep for Timm Medical Technologies, a company that distributes constrictive vascular devices– penis pumps– in mid-November. Considering the surgery and all, I was qualified to get one for therapy. I told the guy several times that we had a end-of-December deadline to deal with because that was when our insurance carriers changed. Aetna would cover a pump, we weren’t sure about Blue Cross. He told me it would take two weeks max.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, zilch. I called the rep and left a voice mail. He didn’t return my call, so I called customer service. They told me they needed more paperwork, apologized for not calling, and said they’d call the rep. I called him again, left another voice message. He called the next day, said the paper work was in the mail, two weeks for the pump, et cetera.

I got side-swiped by the surgery then, but started leaving voice mails for the rep. He never returned my calls. Resultant: no pump since Timm Medical fucked up on the Aetna paperwork and isn’t a Blue Cross provider, and more paperwork to go through with a new insurance carrier that won’t give me a straight answer on coverage.

Have I ever mentioned that I really fucking hate insurance companies? At this point it would be safe to say that I’m not overly fond of the goat fuckers at Timm Medical, either.

Fortunately my urologist and his office manager are taking my concerns seriously and are working on expediting the paperwork to Blue Cross.

The bills from the surgery are starting to trickle in and I’ve gone into my automatic “no prisoners” mode since I consider any relationship involving an insurance company or hospital billing department to be adversarial by nature. Kristen is standing by to review every last scrap and bill for signs of back stabbing by the hospital or the insurance company. So far they’ve been good boys & girls, but it’s early in the game.

Only other item of note is that I retired my bikini underwear for the time being. They just doesn’t lend themselves to the insertion of absorbent pads. I went commando for years, and didn’t even consider wearing underpants until after my vasectomy. By then I’d gotten used to the support from wearing a jock strap for a month and went with bikinis. But they don’t work with pads, so I’ve gone over to boxer briefs until full continence returns.

It’s always some damned thing…