This past Tuesday morning, I woke up at 4am so I could get to El Paso, Texas by 6. I needed to check in for my radical prostatectomy at Providence-Memorial Hospital near the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. The drive down was nice and quiet. Interstate 10 hadn’t yet become busy. My wife, Kumie, kept me company. The lights of El Paso and Juarez were just fading as twilight began to brighten the sky. Because I’d preregistered with the hospital, a nurse had called me the day before and asked me most of the questions they needed to know and sent me a map to the visitor parking area. So, the whole check in process felt very efficient. I soon found myself in the pre-op ward getting prepped for surgery. Right around the 8am surgery time, staff came to wheel me into the operating room and began administering anesthesia. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in the recovery ward, and my wife told me it was 1pm.
I had a robotic procedure with the surgeon controlling a robot with multiple arms. To remove the prostate, they cut five small holes in my abdomen. So, no surprise when I began to wake up, the thought that occurred to me is that I’d had a knife fight with a robot. Admittedly, it was a very one-sided knife fight. Maybe I could have taken it if I hadn’t been anesthetized. That thought was the moment where I realized it currently hurts to laugh. It also hurts to cough, so clearing my lungs has been fun, too. Still, I feel like there’s a story idea lurking in this imagery.
Also, while I was in the recovery room, one of my publishers wrote, asking about stories for an upcoming anthology. So, I had an email exchange while sitting up in bed recovering from surgery, head still clearing from anesthesia. I should note, this is the same publisher who asked for a pitch while I was vacationing at the Grand Canyon two years ago, and then the next year asked for one after I’d been asleep all day because of work at the observatory. By then, only one of the potential story ideas in the stack was left. Still, I made the best of things. The last two stories that I conceived in challenging circumstances turned out well and I feel good about the current idea. I just need to flesh it out over the next couple of days.
At any rate, the surgeon came in and told me the surgery went well. She found no problems other than a secondary, non-life-threatening issue I’ll need to deal with after I recover from all this. A tissue sample from near the prostate was sent off for immediate analysis. As with all previous tests, it showed no sign that the cancer had spread outside the prostate. I’ll know more after I get the full pathology report at my follow-up in two weeks. At that point, they’ll have examined the full prostate and the lymph nodes that were removed. Still, current signs are extremely promising that the doctor, with the robot’s help, completely removed the cancer. Now I’m just working on making appropriate progress toward getting my mobility and stamina back. I already feel much better than I did in the recovery ward just a few days ago.
Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers, and support. As always, I hope you’ll continue to learn about the books I’ve written and published by visiting http://www.davidleesummers.com. There’s little better than a five-star review to boost an author’s morale after they’ve tangled with a multi-armed robot.
David Lee Summers' Web Journal 