dormouse1953

9 days since I first tested positive.

I got a text from Boots telling me my prescription was ready. Then I heard people talking about four-hour queues at pharmacies around the country. Not sure what to expect, I walked into Guildford town centre this morning. Very eery. Almost totally deserted. Malls and shops closed.

And Boots? Also totally deserted. There was a bored guy on the pharmacy counter who immediately found my prescription. He checked my address and post code but didn't ask me to sign for it. Next visit due in eight weeks.

Since the flare-up of my prostate problems two years ago, I've been taking a drug called finasteride.  One tablet a day.

I've been making use of the Boots repeat prescription service.  The idea is that when my current supply is about to run out, they contact the surgery for a repeat of the prescription, get the drug and then text me that it's ready to collect.  Alas, they often forget to text me, and I've got into the habit of turning up at the pharmacy a day or so before my supply is due to run out to find that it's there for me to collect.

So, I turned up yesterday as I was down to my last tablet, expecting it would be waiting for me.  Oh no, I was told, you're not due for a repeat until next week.

Well, that was obviously wrong.  Each prescription is for two boxes, each containing 28 tablets.  Each book contains two bubble packs, each pack has two strips of seven tablets.  It's easy to keep track of where I am during the week by how many of the current strip have been used.  56 tablets is exactly 8 weeks.  I last picked up the prescription on 29th July, exactly eight weeks ago today.

They told me to come back today.  Today I was told that it appears they had a fault with their reminder system and it was reminding a week late.  (And what is worse, they don't know how far back this has been happening.)  They've contacted the surgery but they don't expect to get the prescription until after the weekend.  Meanwhile, they did at least give my a week's supply to tide me over.

However, for the record, I've not had any recurrence of my problems since going on the drug.  Curiously, the same drug is also used to treat male pattern baldness.

Actually, this is a bit yucky so let's see if I can do a cut...

( Read more... )

Tuesday morning, the post brought a letter from Vision Express telling me it was time for my two-yearly eye test.  I meant to phone them that morning, forgot, and then also received an e-mail from them with the same information.  There's also a link allowing you to book an appointment on line.  However, I was just about to go round the town centre and I realised that I would be walking right past their shop so I decided to go in to make an appointment personally.

The appointment was for lunchtime today and I turned up a few minutes early,  It was obviously a slack time as there were two opticians waiting at the eye test reception area and they addressed me by name as I was climbing the stairs.  I was ushered into the preliminary test area by one of them and prepared myself for the torture machine that puffs air into your eyes.  (I am much more apprehensive of eye tests than I am of the dentist.)

Before she started the test, the other guy poked his head around the door and told her to hold off.  He said something about early renewals, I think.  She then went off to have a discussion with him, but I had a good guess as to what it was about.  When she returned she explained that my last eye test was 7th March 2013.  The NHS insists that eye tests are a minimum of two years apart, so I was a week early.  They made another appointment for next Thursday.

I did point out that their system had sent me two reminders and allowed the appointment to be made without checking all this.  I also pointed out that I'm a retired computer programmer, if they want to tweak their system.

I've been invited to participate in a survey on mobile phone usage and health, run by Imperial College and company called Cosmos.  Googled around, and it does seem to be legit.  I wonder where they got my address from.

Think I may take part, even though I never used a mobile phone before I was in my fifties and use it maybe three times a year.

Got a phone call just now from the district nurses.  It's time for my annual flu jab she says.  I've never had a flu jab in my life.  She checks.  I'm not old enough.  Seems they start doing them when you're sixty.  Never did work out why she thought I was due.

Then she said that they have me down for a catheter change in January.  I have to point out that my catheter was removed when I had the prostate operation five weeks ago, and I phoned them when the operation was scheduled as I had been due for a catheter change that week.  Did manage to schedule the picking up of the spare catheter supplies I had left over.

( Contains gruesome medical details )

After nearly four months wearing a catheter, I got a phone call Wednesday last week from the Royal Surrey County Hospital.  Could I come in on Monday for my operation.  They did say back in August that as I'm retired they'd put me on the list of people who could be called in as a replacement if a gap developed, and I think that's what happened.

Friday I got a letter from them detailing the admissions procedure and a phone call giving me the actual time: 12:15.  As that meant I couldn't eat or drink before 07:00 I had a large meal Sunday night rather than get up and have an early breakfast.  I set off for the hospital just before midday; it's only a short walk from my house.

Soon after I arrived at the Elective Surgery Unit, a nurse came and asked me some questions and took my blood pressure, which was a bit higher than normal, as was my pulse.  Definitely nervous.  The anaesthetist came and asked me some more questions.  He said that operation was usually done under a local anaesthetic, immobilising me from the waist down for four hours.  I was a bit apprehensive of this, as I tend to blather when I'm nervous, and I didn't want to put the surgeon off.  I was told that I'd be sedated, so that wouldn't be a problem.

The surgeon came and discussed the procedure.  Then I was told to change into the hospital gown and DVT stockings.  It was about two o'clock.

The other two men in the ESU were taken away.  I sat reading my book.  I got through about 150 pages.  The nurse came and told me that they were still going to operate on me, but there'd been a delay.  As I'd taken my watch off when I changed and put it in my bag I wasn't sure what the time was.  She said she was embarrassed to tell me that it was now gone five o'clock.  It was beginning to get dark.

About an hour later, a male nurse came to take me to the theatre.  First he asked me a list of questions, checked my wrist tag, asked me to verify it was my signature on the document I'd signed earlier, and wheeled me into the main part of the hospital.  He left me waiting in a side alcove for a couple of minutes before another nurse arrived for the next stage.  He went through the same questioning procedure as the first nurse and took me to theatre.  You can't see where you are going pushing one of those big hospital wheeled beds and he managed to send a hazard cone flying at one point.

I was then in the entrance area to the operating theatre.  There were two anaesthetists there, neither the one I'd spoken to earlier.  Apparently, I had been so apprehensive about the local they'd changed their minds and were giving me a general anaesthetic.  They inserted a cannula into my hand and then got me breathing through a mask.  I remember saying it smelled minty and hearing one of them say that it smelled of plastic to them.

Next thing I knew, I was in the recovery ward and a nurse was sitting beside me asking me how I felt.  I felt remarkably well but wasn't really aware of my surroundings.  Turned out they were giving me morphine.  I recall seeing a clock on the wall and noting it was eight thirty.  I was taken out of the ward about ten o'clock, which seemed about five minutes later.  I guess I was really out of it most of the time.

(The hospital appears to have lost me around this period.  My brother had phoned the ESU at about the time I was taken to the theatre, because he told me later the nurse had said I was being wheeled past as they spoke.  He phoned again at eight o'clock and the ESU told him I was in Compton Ward and Compton Ward told him I was in the ESU.)

As they were about to move me to the next ward, I suddenly felt very nauseous, even before they started moving the bed.  But as I had had no food by then for 24 hours, I retched but that was it.  The memory of the journey was of many identical corridors flashing by.

Much to my surprise, I was shunted into a room on my own.  The senior nurse asked me if I had been given morphine, as my voice sounded funny.  I said I always sounded like that.  Another nurse told me that my brother was on the phone and did I have a message.  Ian told me the next day that I said, "I'm fine, well, I'm not."

The curtains were open on the window in the room.  It had been a fine warm sunny day when I set off for the hospital.  Now it was raining hard.  I could hear the rain beating on the window.  I think I spent much of the night watching the street lights refracted through the rain drops.  I think I woke up every half hour or so, often as a nurse came in to check things.

In the morning I was able to discover what the set-up was.  I still had a catheter in, but it was a big one with an extra connection.  Through this they were flushing saline solution.  There was a line of big 2 litre bottles sitting on the window ledge and they were changing them fairly regularly throughout the night..  So the catheter bag by the bed was filling up with a mixture of saline, blood and urine.

I was given breakfast and was even able to eat it.  After 36 hours without food, I was not that hungry.  Perhaps not unexpected in the circumstances.

A doctor came and told me that a large blockage had been removed from my prostate but I should be fine now.  He also did some manoeuvre involving kinking the catheter outflow tube to create a partial vacuum so that he could see the fresh urine coming out.  This stings.

I was helped out of bed to get as far as the wash basin.and was given a clean gown.  But, encumbered with the saline drip and the catheter bag, I wasn't inclined to go any where.  In fact, I couldn't get any enthusiasm to do anything except sit and stare into space, probably dropping off to sleep occasionally.  Didn't even want to read the book.

My brother turned up about two o'clock, and I think I held a coherent conversation.  He'd just had his own medical emergency, having come from the dentist after having an abscess lanced.  He'd also had the same operation as me about five years ago, so we were swapping notes.  He noticed I had my own phone, so he jotted down the number and my sister was able to phone me that evening.

There seemed to be two schools of thought among the nurses on my ward about how my drip should be managed.  Some had the flow on high which meant that the liquid was coming through pale but they had to empty the bag and change the saline bottle every half hour.  Others put the drip on very slow, which meant they didn't have to change things too often, but the liquid was very bloody.  I don't know which they should have done, and I'm not sure how much difference it makes.

Bleeding from the tip of the penis is a problem, and the whole genital area gets very messy.  When I had my gown changed in the morning, I had been given an absorbent pad to put over the area.  When the night nurse came on she took one look at this and said, "Oh, you've got a small one!"  "Thank you!" I replied, thinking I was in a Carry On film.  Turned out that there's a larger type of pad that fits round the waist a bit like a disposable nappy..

I slept a lot better that night, witnessing a thunderstorm in the early hours.  The doctor returned before breakfast.  He did the thing with the tube again and said if I kept like that, the catheter would be out by lunchtime.  And that is what happened.  And it was very painful.  I was given an anaesthetic gel on the tip of my penis afterwards, which lessened the sting.  Then the cannula came out.

After an hour or so, just after finishing my lunch, I felt the urge to pee.  And pee I did.  It was very painful, very bloody, but the first real pee I'd done for four months.  I had to pee into a specimen jar for the first three attempts.  These are nowadays made of papier-mâché, which seems odd but they don't seem to leak.  They can re-mash them for recycling on site.

The nurse who came to take the first specimen said, "It's not very much," but I was glad I'd managed it.  Two more came at half hour intervals and then they scanned my bladder and pronounced its size was good.  But the nurse thought I might have to do another three as I hadn't peed that much.  She was going to have to consult the doctors.  A few minutes later, she told me I could go.

For some reason, the catering in the hospital is organised over a day in advance.  Tuesday morning I was asked to fill in a menu for Wednesday lunch and supper and Thursday breakfast..  Till then, it was a matter of what was available.  So the only meal I had that I'd actually ordered was Wednesday lunch.  Thursday's menu was sitting filled in on my table when I left.

Ian had said he'd come and pick me up, but he wasn't expecting me out so soon.  He was at work up in London (having just re-arranged his schedule to pick me up on Thursday) and had to take the train home and then drive down to Guidlford - and there had been an accident on the A3.  Meanwhile I was escorted down to the discharge lounge.  It was over two hours before he got there, the irony being I'm sure I could have easily walked home in ten minutes.

So, now I'm home.  I'm not feeling 100%, which could partly be an after affect of the anaesthetic.  The notes I have tell me not to drive for a week, not that I could, because of this.  I seemed to be peeing a lot last night, and it still stung, but I only had to get up once during the night.  Getting off to sleep was a bit difficult and I have a slight headache.  Today, I've been peeing a lot less frequently, and it doesn't sting as much and is less bloody.  But I'm still bleeding from the penis, and could be doing so for a few days yet.  I've got an absorbent pad down my pants.  They've also given me laxatives to avoid straining when having a crap.

And, as closure, when I got home yesterday, waiting for me on the mat was the souvenir book and programme guide for Renovation, this year's Worldcon, which I missed due to not wanting to fly when wearing a catheter.

So I got called into hospital for tests today. I probably should have gone in last week, but it looks like my referral didn't get referred properly.

This is what they called a TWOC, a test without catheter. They took the catheter out first thing, which wasn't as painful as I thought it might be, and then sat back and waited to see what happened. Which was basically nothing. After a couple of hours, I felt like peeing, but nothing came out but a drop. (I'd been given a jug to measure how much urine I was passing. I really needed a micro-pipette.)

Another couple of hours more and still nothing, and it was getting uncomfortable again. The catheter went back in, only this time I've been given a valve not a bag, which is more comfortable walking, but I have to remember to empty the bladder.

Apparently, the bladder probably got so stretched two weeks ago, it might just be difficult to get enough pressure to empty it normally. She is going to prescribe something that might help this and I'll go back next week to try this again. Only trouble was, she couldn't find a suitable urology doctor to sign the prescription, so I'll have to pick it up tomorrow. After that, there'll be an appointment with a specialist.

It's looking doubtful I'll make Worldcon this year. I was about to book a flight the day this problem came up and didn't feel well enough to do so. Since then, I've held off to see what happens, but I don't like the idea of travelling with a catheter, taking things like urine bags with me, and what happens if I need to see a doctor while away. I have annual medical insurance with Amex, but I'm sure that won't help if I fly with an existing medical condition.

This will be the first Worldcon I've missed since 1982.