I can say few things with absolute certainty in life but after the past 11 days, I have a few: June 9 marked the beginning of the absolute worst time of my life.
My bride, 3T, is a rock and I never have made and never will make a smarter decision than the one I did when I asked her to marry me.

Of course, I knew the latter for a while, but the past 11 days have opened up new vistas on my marriage, how deeply I depend on it, and what a great source of strength and inspiration my marriage to 3T provides.
Trying times will do that.

And nothing has been more trying in my life than what has gone on since 3T and I walked into the hospital admission office well before sunrise.

It’s almost impossible to write about what happened after that because my mind still recoils in horror at the images that haunt me, images of tubes running out of my body like wires in a stereo receiver; a constant parade of nurses and aides poking and prodding me in a quiet but determined effort to cover the screwups that left me with three fewer pints of blood than I had when I went into the hospital, a still staggering 10.5 hours on the operating table, and days of pain and a morphine-induced fog.

I knew just about everything I feared was coming true almost as soon as I emerged from the anesthesia and saw my bride’s beautiful face hovering over mine to greet me on my return from my mini-coma.

And even 3T’s heroic efforts to cheer me up and comfort me during my unexpectedly long stay (six days instead of two) in the hospital couldn’t quite diminish the horror I felt around and in me. The horror of a lot of pain, the horror of being in a hospital wing with scores of other cheap-gown-clad men and women wandering through the corridors slowly, tethered to IV polls, the horror of realizing that the doctors and others at the hospital had made a series of mistakes that left me in more discomfort and fear than I had ever anticipated.

There were two different sets of fears that plagued me: first, those that were based in fact: seven entry wounds across my abdomen from the surgeon’s blades; twice the operating time I had been told this procedure would last; a mistake that even before I was under had dumped 6 hours worth of IV-induced fluids into me in a matter of 15 minutes because the attendant forgot about me; a loss of blood that turned me into an anemic for at least the next 3 to 6 months.

Then there are the possibilities of other horrors still to be determined: Will the length of time I was under affect my mind somehow? How will my blood loss affect me in the short and long term?  Will I be incontinent? Will I be impotent?

Some of these fears would have existed no matter how flawlessly the operation had been conducted. But the fact it seems to have been botched just makes them more fearsome.
So much for all the bad stuff. There is a lot more, but it’s too painful to get into. Besides, I want to tell you at least a summary of the good part about this ordeal-namely, the strength my wife has brought me through staying by my side every minute of the time since I emerged from the OR. She has carted my sorry butt, dressed my surgical wounds, cooked the best meals I ever had, and has all around been my advocate as well as my wife. I cannot thank her for all she has done, but I will be spending the rest of my life trying to.

For now, I am looking forward to nothing with more excitement than you can ever imagine to Thursday afternoon, when the specialist removes the catheter that right now plagues my every waking moment. It’s uncomfortable, demeaning, dispiriting, debilitating.

Once I get past that, 3T and I will begin putting together a more detailed bank of information on what happened in that operating room on June 9.

And for all you men and wives of men out there, don’t let my report dissuade you from getting an annual prostate checkup and doing something about it if cancer is detected. The astounding part of all this is that surgery was and is the only fully reliable way of eradicating it. In my case, the biopsy suggested my cancer was in a different place than it really was on my gland, meaning that if I had elected on radiation, the cancer might have been able to elude treatment.

And one final note: I cannot thank enough my wonderful sisters Margie and Mikki and my brother Jim and their spouses, as well as all you wonderful readers, for all your encouragement since this nightmare began. Your words and prayers mean more to me than you will ever know, and I hope one day I too can provide some kind of meaningful support the way you supported me.