Tag Archives: cancer

Today I had another chance to enjoy a trip to Stoke Mandeville hospital for my third PSA-level check since my radical prostatectomy. Coincidentally, it is one year to the day since I dressed (briefly) in a theatre gown and was ushered into the wings of the operating theatre awaiting my entrance to go under the knife. Actually, this should have been my fourth post-operative check but holidays [vacations in Amerispeak] got in the way somewhat. Well, one shouldn’t let medical issues disturb having a good time too much, eh?

Carol cleverly avoided the normal Stoke Mandeville parking nightmare by kicking me out of the car in the near vicinity – at least she came to a halt before doing so – and then smartly dashing off to do some planning for her mum’s approaching 90th birthday bash.

I walked the short distance to outpatients reception to check in, then wandered along to the waiting room. I had hardly sat down and begun reading one of the traditionally out of date magazines before I was called in to see the consultant. Odd! This is the first time my appointment has ever been on-time.

PSA-level = zero.

I have to return for another check in March but, if that is still zero, they will let my GP carry out the further tests. Actually, I had been expecting that to happen this time; I think it’s normal after one year. My suspicion is that the consultant saw just three test results, which are normally at 3-monthly intervals, and didn’t realize that my year was, in fact, up. Still, no worries, I don’t have much else planned for March. I walked back into town to meet Carol.

It was a curious hospital trip: no stressful searching for a parking space and no one hour wait staring at paint flaking off the walls.

Excellent news, happy anniversary.

I must have been having too much fun over the summer because I just realized that it’s been a long time since I wrote anything about my recovery from my radical prostatectomy. My last entry seems to have been April 16th. That’ll never do – time to correct my oversight and keep awareness high, especially as we approach Movember again. To cut a long story short, my news is all good.

Following our spring jaunt around France for a disgustingly decadent eight weeks, I went to the consultant’s clinic for my second postoperative PSA level check. Now, before the result, here’s a brief aside. Another guy  breezed in, sat beside me and, not knowing me from Adam or my current situation, starting blathering on about how wonderful his PSA results were and chirpily finishing with, “oh yes, happy days”. I could have been sitting there with a terminal condition – he didn’t know. What a complete plonker! Fortunately I wasn’t; my second result was the same as the first check, as near to zero as they can measure (0.05).

We’ve just returned from France part deux, hence my rather elongated period of silence. This trip was a mere six weeks. About a week into the trip, since my i-Pads seemed to be staying largely dry recently, I bit the bullet and decided to try a day “going commando” in a manner of speaking. I was probably also spurred on by the fact that 30°C weather gets a little warm wearing an i-Pad, so lets have it off! I wouldn’t say that I feel 100% secure but I haven’t worn one since and I haven’t yet disgraced myself (my fingers are very firmly crossed).

Ditching the i-Pads after wearing them for nine months required a leap of faith. I had tried returning from the shower block without one – i-Pads and shower cubicles do not mix well – on the earlier French trip and found that I got caught out once or twice so it made me a little leery and I had to get over my lack of confidence.

So, there it is, everything is going in the right direction. I’ll be having my next blood test, coincidentally, on the one year anniversary of my operation, December 2nd.

I’ve already been away in our caravan since my prostatectomy but the caravan is still a very personal space. However, last weekend was another milestone of sorts in that we ventured over to near Ipswich where we would be staying with some old friends in their space. When I stay old friends, I mean friends of long-standing, of course. Our friends still work but, courtesy of the long awaited – at least, it seemed long-awaited – Royal Wedding, they’d be chez-eux on Friday so they didn’t mind when we turned up. We thought we’d take advantage of our route and check the RSPB’s HQ at Sandy, Bedfordshire, en route to see who might be hanging around before descending upon them in the late afternoon.

Also courtesy of the Royal Wedding, the roads were very quiet – reminiscent of travelling in France. In this respect, we should have Royal Weddings more often. On second thoughts, maybe not, since they let Satan’s Little Disciples out of school. Anyway, it seemed most of the wildlife was also inside watching the pomp and ceremony. I spotted a Stock Dove (not a Woodpigeon) but it was a very poor specimen, poorly positioned photographically, that would have been better off in some stock. I also caught the green flash of a Green Woodpecker flitting between trees but all in all, it was very quiet bird-wise. Disappointing. My highlight was a small pond where, above a few Smooth Newts in breeding plumage, a Pond Skater (Gerris) seemed to be tucking into a hapless Alder Fly (Sialis). On the surface (pun intended), Pond Skaters look fairly harmless but they are actually pretty fearsome creatures; I’ve seen a picture of several overpowering a dragonfly.

On Saturday, strong winds screaming in off the north sea at Aldburgh provided a refreshing blow along the very pebbly beach. Watching seagulls flying backwards was quite amusing. I think this one, a Herring Gull (Larus argentatus), is trying to look behind itself to see where it might be going. Just kidding, it was making slow forward progress. Less amusing was our attempting to walk back to the car into the headwind. I understood the seagull’s concern.

Another wild and windy but clear day on Sunday proved Alton Water Reservoir to be far more successful on the bird front than the RSPB reserve at Sandy on Friday. A couple of years ago in France, we spent many hours trying to identify the owner of a particularly piercing, melodious voice. We were a little surprised but delighted to hear that same, haunting melody ringing out around the wooded edge of the reservoir. They are secretive birds that normally remain steadfastly hidden in foliage, even at a distance of 3m/10ft, making a photo nigh on impossible. When one obligingly hops onto a branch right in front of you and begins singing, however, one’s chances improve dramatically. The tuneful culprit is a Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos). Here’s a sample: Nightingale song

The luck wasn’t over yet. Back to our friends’ back garden for a sunny Sunday barbecue and good ol’ Hawk-eyes Carol spotted what at first looked like a Hornet (large flying thing with yellow on it) buzz into the garden. It alighted on a shrub (don’t quote me about the shrub) and said, “photograph me please”. You can see how the yellow might cause confusion from a distance but this is a magnificent, young and therefore pristine, male Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa). Mature males develop a blue pruinescence (powdery coating) on their abdomens and look very different. I confess to initially thinking that this was a female, since I’ve only previously seen older pruinose males, before being corrected by my good friends at iSpot. Live and learn!

Another great weekend, if a little on the wild side, and all went well, as expected. How long is this ridiculous but beautiful weather going on, though?

For Odonata, a.k.a. Dragonflies and Damselflies, that is.

It has been a long winter for a relatively new addict for many reasons, not the least of which, of course, were my surgical experiences caused by ridding myself of a freshly emerged cancerous prostate. Freshly emerged last September, that is. My hope was to have myself fixed up and recovered by the time the new wildlife watching season started. Not wishing to get ahead of myself, but it looks as though it may have happened.

Given my latest addiction, a few weeks ago I decided to join the Bedfordshire Natural History Society. Using their records from 2010, I discovered that the first Damselflies records were Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula – these are always first) on 20th April, 2010, at Duck End Nature Reserve at Maulden, Beds. We’ve had some staggeringly good weather this spring so off I went with my spotter (hawk-eyes Carol doesn’t miss much) looking for much more welcome freshly emerged cellular clusters.

Sally Satnav got very confused trying to get us to within a spit of Duck End. Some scurrilous rascal has slung in a completely new road heading for Bedford, a road that neither I nor she knew about. Thinking I was at a different roundabout, I mistakenly turned onto said new road. Poor Sally!; as far as she was concerned our little Mazda MX5 was emulating our Honda CR-V and was merrily tromping across the farm fields of Bedfordshire like a fully accomplished off-roader. Garmins are irritatingly amusing when you get off course – “recalculating, recalculting, recalculating”. Actually, since our Garmin is currently set to French [Ed: Don’t ask] she muttered, very sexily, “calcul encore, calcul encore, calcul encore”. Naturally, since we were now not on a road as far as she was concerned, she had a very hard time calcul-ing encore. Eventually, though, we hit a road that did exist a few months ago and both she and we were back on track. OK, Sally, don’t panic.

With the help of a local allotment holder, we located Duck End NR, forced our way through about 10 football-toting youths [Ed: Darwin, how much better the world is when Satan’s little disciples are incarcerated in school!] and started looking for signs of intelligent life. Orange Tip butterflies were in profusion but very uncooperative. A Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) was much better behaved and basked with its wings nicely opened. Nearby, a Small White (Artogeia rapae) seemed to be sucking moisture from some mud but didn’t sit very long and certainly not with its wings open – they rarely do. Both enabled me to get a little practice, though.

For a pocket-handkerchief of a reserve, Duck End sports four bodies of water. Having tried #1 and #2 to not avail, I was studying  #3 when I heard my spotter dry, “here!” back at the far side of #1. Bingo, hawk-eyes had seen our first damselfly of the year. Just as I was getting my camera ready, it flew off into the trees. Bugger! We waited, we watched – nothing. Curses! I shouldn’t have worried, hawk-eyes wandered a little further along the hawthorn hedge and spotted a few other Large Red damsels. Hawthorn hedges and brambles make for a confusing background, confusing enough to cause my Canon EOS 40D autofocus logic to get very confused. Bugger! Over winter, I’d forgotten how frustrating this focus-hunting can be. Eventually I got it stabilized enough for some decent shots of these truly beautiful critters, though.

Hawk-eyes struck again when she found a couple of exuviae attached to some of the vegetation surrounding the damsels’ nursery pond. One was particularly interesting because at least one lamella was still attached to the rear end of the abdomen. The lamellae, there are usually three, are like gills  for damselfly larvae and absorb oxygen from the water .

I have just realized that that, during this entire afternoon, not once did I think about any incontinence. That’s the first day that’s happened for four months. Wow!

An excellent day – not only was the weather stunning but my friends are back! Something else may be mostly back, too, but I don’t want to jinx it.

Today it is exactly four calendar months since the removal of my post-prostatectomy catheter, the start of Mr. Leaky, so I thought another progress bulletin was in order.

There’s a couple of things to point out about this return to continence process, assuming I haven’t already done so. [Ed: A senior moment, eh?] The first is that the level of security can vary quite markedly from day to day. I have frequently been somewhat disappointed having suffered a less secure day following what seemed like a relatively very good day. This phenomenon is something I’ve tagged Inconsistent Incontinence, or II (eye-eye) for short. I’ve no idea why it happens, but it does. This is one of the reasons it is important to take an average view and look back a week or two to gauge progress.

A second feature is that, as progress is made, it gets quite difficult to assess further progress. In the earlier stages of recovery it is quite obvious, for example, that you can now get out to the driveway and into the car securely whereas a little while ago, down the hall to the kitchen was one’s limit. Even judging the difference between walking, say, a quarter mile compared to half a mile are quite easy to gauge. Once over a mile, though, progress gets trickier (unless you resort to a pedometer or GPS solution). During our recent two weeks sauntering around the New Forest, I felt much the same as I had for about the previous month: get about a mile, then start noticing that old I’m-about-to-leak sensation.

This week, however, has provided a couple of good milestones – another good reason for a progress update. I joined our local U3A walking group on Tuesday for a 5½ mile walk around some very pleasant woodland and countryside in our vicinity. It’s only two weeks since we were in the New Forest but I felt, really, very secure. I very nearly made it as far as the 3-mile post, actually, 2.8 miles (I admit it, I used the GPS solution), before any lack of security crept in, and then it was very slight. I was/am delighted.

I had even stressed myself a day earlier by voluntarily lifting and re-laying several heavy patio slabs to correct a slight subsidence. A couple of months ago any work of a heavy nature would certainly have caused a bit of a leak but I seemed to cope admirably.

Remembering the first feature, II, I’m resisting getting carried away. I’m certainly not ready to ditch the i-Pad Manos just yet but I am very positive about recent progress. Cycling is no problem at all, except that I sometimes think that I suffer a slightly increased weakness as an after-effect of it, and if I can indulge in 5-mile or more walks without too much concern then, in practical terms, life is not too far from normal. I can indulge in the pastimes I enjoy.

We’ve booked the ferry for France ready for our spring migration. Yeah!

Having re-acquainted ourselves with the New Forest last September, courtesy of waiting on things medical, we had rather optimistically booked ourselves into a year-round campsite there for New Year. New Year in the New Forest: seems almost poetic. At the time of making the booking, I was expecting some temporary incontinence but I was still thinking stress incontinence. As we now know, the level of it was rather more severe following my prostatectomy on 2nd December. In the light of our more complete knowledge, we rearranged our booking for late March. There was, as it turned out, an additional problem at New Year: snow. Towing a caravan/trailer down to the New Forest in snow would never have been an enjoyable or, indeed, sensible task.

When it came to the re-arrangement we lucked out. We went down a few days early and arrived in stunning (for March in England) weather. Traffic was light and the sun was shining – the journey was a dream. With the exception of one day, the run of glorious weather continued for the 12 days of our stay. Unhappily, I wasn’t the only attendee with a damp problem; our caravan, Billy, has come out in sympathy to show moral support. At his recent service, the “engineer” reported the beginnings of water ingress in his near-side rear quarter. If that wasn’t enough, he’s leaking water back out of the pressurized on-board water system into the external container. I know exactly how he feels! I’d just as soon he wasn’t showing quite such a level of support, however.

I wouldn’t normally think that visiting an essentially broad-leaved deciduous forest in winter would be so enjoyable but enjoyable it was. With no forest canopy, all the ample sunlight was filtering through the bare branches of the trees and hitting the forest floor. Additionally, the forest floor’s undergrowth (largely bracken) had died down for the winter and was dormant so the views through the well-lit trees were very good. Of course, different weather would have produced a different story but it was all very pleasant.

We were there over the theoretical beginning of spring and the wildlife was beginning to wake up to its spring tasks. We had plenty of bird life around our pitch feeding on feeders we had taken with us (for the first time). Expecting the forest tracks to be quite muddy, we had armed (legged?) ourselves with Wellington boots and indulged in several nature rambles of 3-4 miles or so. I wasn’t quite as watertight as the Wellies but any leakages were not severe enough to stop the enjoyment. The nature highlights were the year’s first butterflies emerging in the form of the sulphur-yellow Brimstones and I managed to snag a pair of Pond Skaters in flagrante delicto, poor things. Actually, I didn’t notice that they were a pair in a passionate embrace until I loaded the shot on my laptop back at Billy. It’s amazing how blind I can be staring through a view-finder.

The low point was being attacked by a New Forest pony. Commoners have grazing rights and their ponies, plus a few cattle, wander about essentially freely. The ponies are quite famous and are usually very placid, though tourists are requested not to interfere with them and advised to give them a respectably amount of space. In this case, we were giving the pony in question a wide berth but it took it into its head actively to pursue me. It crossed about 60ft/20m of open ground to get to the path down which Carol and I were walking and followed us down the path before turning its rear-end towards me and lashing out twice with both hind legs. The first kick missed but the second was more successful and made contact with my right hip, fortunately only relatively lightly. Had it been my stomach, I’d have been less philosophical about it, I suspect.

We’d taken our bicycles, too, and tried our first post-operative bike rides of any real note. We started with a quite modest 8 miles but very soon thereafter indulged in a 27-mile round trip to Bucklers Hard, an historic 18th century ship building village. Several ships for Admiral Nelson’s fleet were built here from oak trees felled in the New Forest. Since one galleon required about 2000 oak trees, I began to see why there are tracts of forest with no trees at all. Such were the delights of the unseasonal spell of weather that we also cycled to the south coast to enjoy a seaside ice cream, as if we weren’t taking in enough calories in the form of alcohol. (It’s completely unfair that alcohol contains any calories at all.) Not only did we find a particularly splendid ice cream but we were also entertained by a gaggle of paragliders drifting back and forth along the cliffs of Barton-on-sea while we ate it. Paragliders make a wonderfully colourful photographic subject, especially against a clear blue sky.

So, all in all a great time. Like my caravan, I may not be 100% watertight yet but, if, as I did, I can embark on 4-mile walks and 25-mile bike rides without too much in the way of consternation, then life is definitely on the way to returning to my kind of normal.

Considering the fact that I was born in February, I really should be used to it being a short month by now. I’m not, though; I never seem to be prepared for March to start. Slow learning curve I guess. So, here we are at the last day of February and it’s approaching three months since my radical prostatectomy. That makes it time to begin a year of 3-monthly follow-up blood tests for PSA. It is apparently necessary to wait three months after the operation to allow all existing PSA to get flushed from the system. If, as is hoped, all those nasty prostate cells have been successfully removed, my PSA level should drop to pretty much zero. This morning at 8:10 AM, I visited our practice nurse to get the blood sample taken and sent to the hospital. I should be given the results this Friday afternoon at my second follow-up meeting with the urology nurse. Fingers firmly crossed!

I’ve also agreed to take part in a UK Genetic Prostate Cancer Study being performed by the ICR (Institute of Cancer Research). That involved a questionnaire about my relatives, already completed, and two more samples of blood which our obliging practice nurse drew at the same time as the PSA sample to save on the holes.

This weekend was definitely my most active yet. We are both getting stir-crazy as a result of our dull winter but, since Sunday morning was unusually sunny, Carol decided to walk into town, a distance of about two miles, for a little retail therapy. I rashly chose to adopt a kill-or-cure approach and joined her for the 4-mile round trip wander. Brave or foolhardy, I knew not. Though not entirely leak-free, I did make it without the damage being disturbing. Obviously I’d love to remain entirely dry but at least it seems that I’m beginning to be able to do the things I enjoy most, even if with a little remaining apprehension.

The main reason for the retail therapy trip was to purchase an SDHC memory card for the little Nikon Coolpix camera that came with the digiscoping kit purchased on Saturday. The camera had a small amount of “on-board” memory (32Mb, I think) but a card would really be needed once we started digiscoping uncooperative wildlife. As I found out with my first attempts, catching a reasonable shot, given the inherent slight delay combined with jittery targets, is largely a matter of luck. You really need to press the shutter a lot and discard the 90% of the shots that missed. For a massive £4, we snagged a 4Gb SDHC card that would enable us to press the shutter about 350 times.

We got back just before the heavens opened. [Ed: that’s 2½ days of sun this month.]

In a desperate attempt to find a saving grace for naff weather, I’ll suggest that it does tend to increase the bird activity in our garden. Today, now armed with a memory card as well as a shiny new digiscoping kit, I tried playing with my new acquisition again.

I don’t really like photographs of birds on feeders. I do occasionally take such shots to document what species visit us but I wouldn’t use them as anything approaching artistic. Today, however, I noticed that some of our feathered friends, mostly Great Tits (Parus major), were using the bare branches of one of Carol’s acers as a staging post before raiding our peanut feeder. The occasional Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus) alighted, too, but all attempts to snag one of them were in my 90% discards, unfortunately. I did, however, manage to beat the odds when a Robin (Erithacus rubecla) perched briefly allowing me to get off two shots, one of which was perfectly OK. The acer makes for a much more natural-looking setting than a feeder.

Now, I wonder how I can persuade our local Long-tailed Tits (Aegithalos caudatus) to use the acer as well?

Startling admission: I’ve never been a sports fan. [Ed: No, really!?] My problem is not just a lack of interest, it’s a dislike that encompasses not only watching sport but also, indeed mainly, partaking in sport.

By “sport”, I’m referring to all those traditional team games involving large expanses of grass and balls of varying shapes, sizes and hardness being kicked or knocked about by two opposing groups of tribal men on a war footing. Most uncivilized and extremely dull! It’s not just that I get bored witless by messing about with a ball but, In England at least, the aforementioned large expanse of grass is usually very wet, frequently muddy and often cold, even to the point of being frozen. I had absolutely no interest in being made to sprawl headlong on cold, muddy turf subsequently to have my hands trampled upon by several sets of rugby boot studs setting off in pursuit of the ball I had just dropped. Hateful!

I’ve always had the same approach to sport, especially at school. Wednesday afternoon was sports afternoon and I would be made to choose between the three abhorrent evils of rugby (stupidly shaped ball), hockey (that’s field hockey to the Amerispeakers – very hard ball) and cross-country running (stultifying, lung-bursting purgatory). All very character-building, I’m sure, but I’d rather have been exercising my brain in a triple maths period. (That’s math, to the Amerispeakers.)

A sick note at school on Wednesdays was like gold dust but was a rare item: “John can’t play rugby today because his gout has flared up again … signed, Mum”, kind of thing. [Ed: maybe she should have kept you off the port.] The traditional schoolboy ruse for getting out of sports afternoon was, of course, to forget one’s kit. This was naturally far too obvious and carried absolutely no weight whatsoever with the irritating sports masters, all of whom remained steadfastly convinced of sport’s beneficial qualities and who would kit out the unfortunate offender with various bits of ill-fitting, abandoned clothing from the school’s lost property collection. Thank you, sir!

Summer sport was a little less hateful ‘cos it was generally warmer though, in England, not necessarily drier. Beyond all our so-called playing fields, now marked out for cricket etc., my school was fortunate enough to have its own open-air swimming pool. The school must have been pretty well-to-do, I imagine. Beyond the pool, we even had a 25-yard rifle range complete with supply of .22 calibre rifles but that’s another story. Anyway, on one occasion, I had arrived at school expecting a gym lesson (yukko!) but was somewhat relieved when, instead, we were marched off to the swimming pool. (Don’t faint – I quite enjoyed swimming in those days.) Relieved, that is, except for the fact that I had no swimming trunks with me. The master made me strip off anyway and dive in naked, finally drying myself on my gym T-shirt (apparently I had no towel either). I should point out at this point that I attended a single-sex school: Watford Grammar School for Boys.

[Aside. Across town was was our single-sex “sister” school, Watford Grammar School for Girls. One day, due to their own facilities being repaired or otherwise out of commission, a group of the girls had been offered the use our swimming pool. We had been forewarned of this planned invasion of bathing belles and told to keep well clear. Naturally, to a bunch of sex-starved teenage boys whose testosterone was kicking in, a group of teenage girls and an open-air changing room was far too tantalizing a subject. Being on the far side of the playing fields, however, the distance to our forbidden fruit was something of a problem though nothing that couldn’t be addressed by a few sets of binoculars smuggled in using briefcases. ]

Stick with me, I’m getting there…

I don’t recall the term “skinny-dipping” in those halcyon days but my point is this: I found the experience of swimming unencumbered by clothing very liberating and most enjoyable.

Likewise, sleeping; other than in hospital where decorum dictates their use, I can’t remember the last time I slept in pyjamas. I suppose night attire of one form or another would maintain one’s modesty if the need arose to escape from a burning building or to give chase to a burglar (whereupon, with our crazy laws, the violated house-owner and pursuer would risk being arrested for using excessive force against a criminal) but tossing and turning in bed wearing any form of clothing simply ties you up in knots as the material gets twisted about the torso. Most uncomfortable! Much better to be naked when you can have a good ol’ scratch and get sorted.

The need to wear continence pads in the post-catheter-removal period following my radical prostatectomy, also requires that I wear close-fitting underwear 24 hours a day to hold my pad in place. Other than brief respites to take a shower, I’m now feeling constantly bundled up and constrained. It’s like wearing a straight-jacket. I’ve been in tight-fitting underpants (not the same pair, don’t panic) with my form-enhancing padding for over five weeks. I’m definitely getting to the point where I’d kill to be able to sleep as nature intended. I want to be able to scratch and squirm against the sheets. Darwin, that would be wonderful!

In the same vein, for the last few years I’ve begun to dislike wearing socks. Even in northern Europe the summers are normally warm enough to make socks unnecessary. When travelling around France for weeks on end, I would originally live mostly in sandals, definitely without socks. More recently, I fell in love with Crocs as my general camping footwear of choice, again without socks. I’d pack trainers and a few pairs of socks/liners (I detest trainers without any lining) as an emergency supply against unexpected inclement weather but would generally manage to avoid using them; the socks would be returned clean and unused. At the end of a summer, after several months of basically bare feet, I grew to resent once again having to don socks against the autumnal chill. I much preferred bare feet. Thinking about it, my mother always said she enjoyed having bare feet, too – nature or nurture?

I’m certainly a naturalist but maybe I’m becoming a naturist as well. In France, opposite one of our favoured campsites there is another which is a naturist campsite and is, a little worryingly, open all year.

Now there’s a thought.

Anyone with a copy of Lou Reed’s classic (my opinion) 1972 album, Transformer, should flip it over and remind themselves of the artwork on the reverse of the album/CD cover. For those whose music collection is sadly lacking, I’ve pinched a JPEG of it and included it here. Click on it to see a larger image. I draw your attention to “Mr. Poser” in the blue jeans on the right: his jeans look as though they contain about 10ins/25cms of garden hose strategically positioned and clearly designed to impress his target audience, whatever that might have been. Given Lou Reed’s proclivities in the 70s, I’m not sure we really know who his intended audience was. Come to that, I’m not sure Lou Reed in the 70s knew his target audience – absolutely anyone, I suspect.

Good old smutty schoolboy humour, which, of course, I gave up many years ago [Ed: AHEM!], remind me of another similar attraction tactic. Try stuffing a pair of rugby socks into your underpants to impress the girls. [Chortle, chortle.]

I wouldn’t describe my current, hopefully temporary, requirement for continence pads following my prostatectomy to be an advantage, exactly, but the pads certainly obviate any need to enhance my appearance using the old rugby sock ruse. My initial pads were so large, more like adult nappies (diapers, in Amerispeak), that nobody would have been fooled. Those in my emergency supply from our local incontinence service, though, were a little more subtle and may have deceived the unwary, given sufficient vodka.

Why had I had to secure an “emergency” supply of pads from our local incontinence service? I’m glad you asked.

Four weeks ago, at the end of my long day of trial without catheter, I was sent home with a discrete carrier bag containing 15 v. large, subtle-as-a-sledge-hammer pads. Given my usage at the hospital, this initial supply represented only about 5-7 days supply. The urology nurse explained that she’d arranged to have 3 months supply delivered to our house.

After five days, no supplies had been delivered so I phoned and explained my dilemma; leaking like a sieve, pads running out. My helpful nurse re-placed the order for me but we were now approaching the Christmas period when a) people take time off work, and b) deliveries get disrupted by volume, anyway. I was not hopeful. She suggested I try our GP surgery.

I contacted my GP surgery (#1) who passed me on to a local NHS clinic (#2) who had pads available but, because they needed authorization to dispense them, passed me on to the local Bedfordshire incontinence service (#3). Hot potato! #3 incidentally, has its phone manned only four hours a day, two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon. I waited for my afternoon window of opportunity and called. I explained my predicament and, despite not having any paperwork for me (I’m being treated by Bucks not Beds), the nice man at #3 took pity on me and compassionately authorized the release of an emergency supply of pads from #2, the local NHS clinic. What Carol collected was a pack of 42 level 4 pads, smaller and more comfortable than my originals though I was, at first, a little dubious about their capacity. Time had managed to reduce my usage rate, however, and I eventually felt assured that this new supply was likely to last about a month, plenty of time to see me through the holiday period when my urology nurse would be back at work.

Towards the end of said month, as predicted, the second order for my 3-month supply of pads proved to have been no more successful than the first order. Clearly, something in the supply chain solution, maybe the logistics, was broken. On Monday I phoned my urology nurse again and explained that my emergency supply of pads was now getting depleted. “What about other patients?” I enquired, “Is it just me or are they also having supply problems?” “You’re the first using this system”, I was told, “we wondered how this might work.” “It doesn’t”, I replied. Nursey told me she’d bring some to our approaching Friday progress meeting but would place the order for a third time anyway.

On Thursday, Carol answered the door to a UPS delivery driver who presented her with three cartons discretely wrapped in plain black plastic. Carol was confused and wondered what this delivery might be. The packages were not heavy. “I suspect these are my long awaited pads”, I said. Sure enough, a few swift slashes [Ed: interesting choice of word, given the situation] with a penknife revealed 17 packets each containing 20 level 2 pads. 340 of them! The delivery note confirmed that these were expected to last three months. These were a yet lower-capacity pad but a quick calculation made me realizing that I had been allowed four a day. Having been a little fretful until my supplies were secured, I could finally relax and not worry about over-usage. I should feel able to tackle more exercise/tasks.

Being smaller again, the pads in this main supply are more comfortable. They are shaped more like a padded cricketer’s box. These really are shaped to assist any posing I happen to feel like doing. Of course, regardless of the disappointment anyone deceived might ultimately feel when reality eventually reared its unwelcome head, there really isn’t any point my emulating “Mr. Poser” on Lou Reed’s album up there given that I no longer have a prostate with which to capitalize on my catch.

[Don't panic - I haven't suddenly gone Politically Correct!]

Both prior to my operation and after the subsequent removal of the catheter, I had been regaled to do regular pelvic floor exercises. I’d heard of pelvic floor exercises, of course, but hitherto exclusively in relation to the fairer sex. I’d never heard them mentioned in relation to men and, even having heard of them, I had no clue as to how to perform them.

The point of pelvic floor exercises is to strengthen the pubococcygeus muscles (also known as PC muscles). Wow, what on earth are those? For folks unfamiliar with a particular muscle group, locating those muscles is the first hurdle to be jumped. I had been offered or had read various helpful hints on how to “locate” my pelvic floor muscles.

1. One information leaflet said that these were the muscles which one used if one attempted to stop urinating once having started. Not an easy task – clearly my muscles did need exercising – but I thought I knew what it meant. The leaflet went on to say that, if I contracted the correct muscles, my testicles would rise slightly. Hmmm, so they do.
2. My surgeon offered that clenching these muscles was “like trying to raise one’s willy without one’s hands”. [Ed: Arghhh! There’s that dreadful word again and from a medical professional, no less!!] Well, of course without one’s hands; that would be a very different exercise.
3. One particularly intriguing American article discovered on the Internet suggested that, with the aid of lubrication, I should insert a finger into my anus and “try to squeeze it”. My oh my, what fun one can have seeking out muscle groups!

Incidentally, in an exchange of details with an American former colleague who has been through the same mill through which I am currently going, I discovered that pelvic floor exercises are referred to as Kegel exercises in the States. Not only do Americans apparently enjoy a different method of locating these muscles but the exercising of them has a different name, too. Add this to the growing collection of language pairs: biscuit/scone; cookie/biscuit; rutabaga/Swede; zucchini/courgette and so on. As with most things American, I blame the Pilgrim Fathers for what I like to refer to as collective memory loss. Yes, I know perfectly well that those guys knew nothing of pelvic floors or Kegels but the mental image of a shipload of pilgrims all trying to locate their pubococcygeus muscles is simply too irresistible.

Anyway, #1 worked for me without the need for lubrication and dubious American practices. Having found them, I’ve been trying to maintain a regime. One exercise technique is to contract the muscles and hold for as long as possible. During the course of a day, 10 sets of 10 such contractions is suggested. The length of time it’s possible to hold the muscles clenched builds up as muscle strength increases. Another suggested exercise, to be mixed in with the first, is to do 10 rapid clench/release cycles. Naturally in the money-obsessed land of the free, capitalism rears its ugly head and hardware devices can be purchased to assist with your Kegel exercises. Some even have a digital read-out! From what I’ve seen, they are for women only – a kind of vaginal equivalent to a chest expander. :O

The handy thing about pelvic floor exercises is that you can do them pretty much anywhere and nobody need know – unless, of course, you’re using one of those hardware devices or allowing your efforts to contort your facial expression. “What are you up to?” “Oh, nothing.” [Whistles nonchalantly] Commercial breaks on TV are handy – mute the sound and distract yourself from the banality by doing a set of 10 clenches. Having trouble sleeping? Never mind counting sheep, count pelvic floor contractions instead. The passenger seat of a car is also a good spot to keep the exercise regime going. I thought I’d be able to do them whilst doing something else but, alas, some concentration is required, even if only to count, and men never were good at multi-tasking, or so we are constantly told. So, probably not a good idea to attempt a set of 10 in the driver’s seat of the car, then.

So, here I am after three weeks at home mostly keeping up my regime of pelvic floor exercises and life is certainly a little easier. At first, the only way I could do any task was to do it sitting down. Now I am managing a few short-lived tasks, like coffee making, standing up with the ol’ Kegels clenched – and no pained expression on my face, either. I can get to the loo without leaking all the way there and, given this extra measure of control, I have reduced my pad usage to one a day in the main.

Certainly, my improvement is not yet what I’d call continence. Without the muscle control I’d still be leaking. Use of the muscles may helping me day to day tasks but it is definitely controlling rather than fixing my leak, at the moment, anyway. All my enjoyed pastimes require me to spend hours at a time on my feet so I need to get beyond controlling the leak. I couldn’t, for example, go for a 5-mile walk with my pelvic floor muscles clenched all the way. Still, I am but three weeks into what was always expected to be a process measured in months rather than weeks. My fingers remain crossed.

Whether these exercises actually help continence is a debated issue in the medical world. Still, doing the exercises certainly doesn’t do any harm so I will definitely continue. It is, after all, the only proactive step available to me. Everything else is down to time and luck.

Finally, during the course of my journey through diagnosis and treatment, I’d accumulated quite a stack of printed material. It’s quite amazing how much bumf they throw at you, possibly hoping to distract you from your unenviable situation. Since I am now firmly locked in to my course of action, I decided to have a clear out. After all, there is no longer anything to be gained from my keeping lists of pros and cons for the various treatment options available. I also had a couple of sheets explaining those pelvic floor exercise techniques. Having been doing them for three weeks, I figured those sheets were no longer necessary, either. As I was tossing them onto the discard pile, something I had previously not spotted caught my eye:

Pelvic floor muscles can also be used to help in delaying premature ejaculation.

Arghhh

Why the hell didn’t someone tell me that 40 years ago?