I was about 9 years old when my dad took my mom and I on a business trip to Seattle, Washington, and we stayed in a high-rise hotel. I had never been in a high-rise hotel before, and I was fascinated with the view. Especially since directly across the street giant cranes with wrecking balls were smashing away at an old building.
What is so fascinating, I wonder, about the sight of a building being torn down? Especially to kids. I watched for hours upon hours. The huge ball of metal would swing, smash into concrete and brick. Dust flew, debris fell. I waited breathlessly for large sections to break loose and tumble to their doom. We went out to dinner, went shopping, I got some toys (I think that’s when I got my first Spirograph and “Barrel Full of Monkeys”) and visited the Space Needle. But all I wanted to do, really, was watch the wrecking balls tear down that building.
Back then, you could open high rise windows. You can’t do that anymore, they’re all bolted shut. When I found I could open the window, a whole new world of fun blossomed. I proceeded to take all the hotel stationary, fold it into paper airplanes, and send them flying through the air toward the deconstruction site across the street.
Again, why is this so fascinating? But to a small boy such as I was, I couldn’t imagine anything more fun. Every scrap of paper I could scrounge flew out that window as one type of airplane or another. And then, watching one, it flew right into a window across the street, right into the doomed building being torn down. In my excitement, I forgot the window was wide open, and I leaned forward and fell out.
We were about 20 stories up.
I heard my mom scream and my father jump. He caught my legs as I was going out the window. I have a very vivid memory of seeing the gray sidewalk below, my hands stretched out in front of me. Little people walking on the sidewalk and small cars driving on the miniature street. Then I was flying backwards as my dad yanked me back to safety.
That was close. I mean, if my dad hadn’t had such quick reflexes, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.
This is what Midjourney thinks a vintage 1960 clothes washing machine looks like.
While I was growing up, my parents had two deadly kid traps in the house. One was the refrigerator, which wasn’t that bad because I had no intention of crawling into it. It was never empty enough to do that anyway. The other trap, however, was much more tempting…
As a child in the 1960’s I was a big fan of shows like Star Trek and Lost In Space. The cartoons I watched also had space or science fiction themes: Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, and the awesome Herculoids. So, when I saw that gleaming white, front-loading 1960’s washer of my mom’s, with that big round glass porthole in front, I could only imagine one thing:
A spaceship!
It seemed to be designed specifically to trap kids such as myself inside. Why else would they engineer the latch handle the way they did? It could close and latch itself, but you had to yank on the handle to open it. And there was no way to open it from the inside. Also — and this is the part that convinces me — the damn thing was nearly soundproof. It was obviously designed to be a trap. Its primary purpose was to wash clothes, but the insidious real purpose was to capture kids and suffocate them to death.
One of my best friends at this age was a black Poodle/Cocker Spaniel mixed dog named Pepper. He looked like a black Poodle with hair that was just a little too long and too straight. My constant companion, he endured whatever boyhood tortures I administered to him and still loved me completely, with no reservations, still willing to go where I went and do what I did. Needless to say, Pepper was my co-pilot when I decided to take the washing machine spaceship on a trip to Planet 12.
I climbed in first, and he jumped in right after me. Then the glass door swung shut of its own accord and locked. I don’t recall if I panicked immediately or if I built up to it, but it was clear to me that I was in deep trouble. You see, I was perfectly aware that a kid I knew when I was even younger had been found suffocated to death in a refrigerator being stored behind an apartment building. I guess it didn’t occur to me until right then that it could happen in a washing machine as well.
I banged and screamed and yelled for quite a while, but Mom didn’t hear me. Dad wasn’t around, because he was at work. It was just me and Pepper there in that space capsule, marooned and running out of air. I don’t really remember what I was thinking. I just remember being very frightened in an I-might-really-die kind of way. I also remember beginning to feel sleepy, and that means (though I didn’t know it then) that suffocation was starting to take place.
Then I remember my older brother, Hank, walking into the room, and he looked down to see Pepper and I staring back out at him. “What in the hell are you doing in there?” he said, amused. With a quick flip of his wrist he popped open the door, and I can still remember how unbelievably sweet and cool the outside air was. Pepper and I fought each other to get out first; Pepper won. I tumbled out onto the floor at my brother’s feet, saved, given a second chance. I would have been dead if it wasn’t for him. I would have been another one of those sad child-suffocation stories, a warning and a caution to others.
The really sad thing is, I’m not sure I ever thanked him for it.
In an earlier article I wrote about being diagnosed with prostate cancer and was considering all the options I’d been given for treatment, but at that point I hadn’t made a decision. I promised I’d post an update when I did.
My choice was to have a prostatectomy, and as I’m writing this I’ve gone through it and I’m currently sitting at home recovering from the surgery. This article is here to give anyone else facing this decision my personal experience so you can kind of know what to expect.
Prostate cancer is a serious health risk that affects numerous men worldwide. The treatments vary from radiation therapy, hormone therapy to surgical interventions, such as a prostatectomy. Each option comes with its unique challenges and potential side effects, but after careful consultation with my doctor, we decided that a prostatectomy was the best course of action for me.
Making the decision wasn’t easy. It involved numerous consultations, sleepless nights, and an emotional roller coaster ride. The thought of an invasive surgery and its implications was daunting, but after a full body scan that verified the cancer had not spread and was located only in the prostate, the prostatectomy seemed the most direct and absolute solution.
Here was the logic involved: If I’d chosen radiation treatment, that is what I would have been stuck with. Operating becomes very difficult after all the damage that radiation does to the internal organs. If I had been much older (I’m currently 62) radiation might have been a better choice, but being that I theoretically have 25 or so years left (maybe longer, I have multiple centenarians in my family) it’s best to go with surgery, get it over with, and still have radiation as a backup for cancer that may pop up in the future.
I met with the surgeon who explained exactly what would happen. He explained the risks involved. He also showed me the success rate. It was extremely high, and because there was a robot involved, very precise.
Treatment included a night in the hospital, recovery and monitoring the next day, and if all went well they would send me home. I would have a catheter for a while, and several interesting scars on my belly. And the cancer would be gone.
I gotta tell you, I didn’t want to do it. Part of me kept thinking, “Hey, is this really worth it? It will change the quality of my life from this point on.” Mainly I was dreading spending over a week with a catheter, and then months or years wearing adult diapers. I have an old friend who went through this years ago and he just yesterday told me it took him two years to get back control of his bladder.
I couldn’t let that sway me from the alternative: eventual death by cancer. That would be worse. Now, seriously, I had to convince myself of that, because I was feeling fine, I was not sick, nothing really seemed to be wrong except for these biopsy results that said I had cancer. It was not a tangible threat that I could see for myself — I had to take their word on it.
Ultimately I accepted the fact, and in preparation stocked up on about 4 months worth of Depends and “chuck pads.”
The Prostatectomy
This is how I remember it. I’m not sure how accurate this is, because anesthesia messes with your memory. Even now as I write this, my short-term memory is messed up and, as I was told, this is a normal side effect and will last about a week.
After checking in at the hospital, they escorted me to a surgery prep room where I met and talked with nurses, the surgeon, and my anesthesiologist. I disrobed, put on the dreaded hospital gown, and made myself comfortable on a bed as they took my vitals and installed an IV.
That took about two hours. I think. Not 100% sure because they’d already started giving me the drugs.
I remember being wheeled out and down hallways, into an elevator, down another hallway and into an operating room. It was very bright. Extremelybright. That’s when I got a good look at the robot, which unfortunately didn’t look anything like R2D2 or CP30. However, it did look extremely clean.
They physically lifted me off the wheeled gurney and onto the operating table, and the anesthesiologist gave me whatever it was that knocked me out, and it happened really fast. It only seemed a few minutes later that I was waking up in a … I don’t know where. I can’t remember where I woke up, but I do remember being wheeled on a hospital bed and into a room, and knew the procedure was over with — but I didn’t know much else. I think I drifted in an out of sleep for a while.
When I did start coming to my senses, that’s when I realized I had the catheter installed, and I was thirsty, and loved ones were asking how I was.
I was fine. I was surprised by how fine I was. Only hours later, they coaxed me out of the bed and had me walking around, but they had a belt on me to keep me from falling in case I lost my balance. A heavy duty leash, basically.
To my surprise, the catheter didn’t bother me at all. At least not while I was at the hospital. More on that later.
I had a late dinner of clear broth, etc., and the same thing the next morning. One of the pain killers they gave me caused my blood pressure to go low, but not dangerously so. It wasn’t a narcotic, or at least that was what they said, as I’d told them I didn’t want opioids if at all possible — they said it wasn’t, that it was more like an ultra-strong intravenous version of ibuprofen.
I was able to get up and walk around, being very careful with the catheter bag, and when they brought lunch, I ate it standing up. One of the weird things I noticed, though, is I had a mild sunburn on my forehead. It took me a while to figure that out: the bright lights in the operating room. They must have been ultraviolet.
After a quick discussion with the surgeon, he gave the okay, and I was discharged.
Recovering At Home
I’m still in this process, but so far so good.
I’d had a drain tube in me which they pulled out right before sending me home. It’s an open wound and kind of freaked me out for a while, but they gave me a good supply of sterile gauze and tape and showed me how to keep it clean and covered while it continues oozing bodily fluids. Eventually it will close on it’s own, and at the time of this writing it’s down to just a little cut.
Besides that, there are five incisions on my stomach which are stitched up with dissolving sutures, and glued shut. I’m to keep an eye on them, watching for redness at the edges that are larger than 1/2 inch.
I have a tube coming out of my poor abused penis leading to a bag, all of which has to be kept very clean so as to not give me a urinary tract infection. I’m to watch for clots. Also I’m supposed to get up and walk a lot, and stairs are okay, which is good because I live in a three story house. I have a list of things which, if they happen, I’m supposed to go straight to the emergency room at the hospital.
So far none of those things have happened.
The catheter is not quite as bad as I’d feared, but it really is annoying and kind of humiliating. That comes out in a few days and I’ve been warned by friends who’ve had them to bring towels and maybe even a change of clothes for when they remove it, as it may be a mega urine splat fest.
I am both dreading, and looking forward, to this event.
Because of the aforementioned short term memory problem, caused by the after affects of the anesthesia, I have to write down my medications as I take them, and when I took them, because I keep forgetting if I took them. They did give me opioid pain killers but so far just rotating ibuprofen and acetaminophen has kept the pain at bay. When I wake up in the morning and the pain meds have worn off, it just feels like really sore muscles.
Depends adult diapers are actually quite comfortable, though I haven’t actually needed them. Yet. I’m wearing them, and sleeping on chuck pads, just in case.
So far, so good.
The pelvic floor muscle control that I was in danger of losing, and having to relearn, seems to still be under my control. I’ll find out exactly how under control after the catheter is out.
Going by the literature, I can regain full control in as little as a month, or in as long as a year, or … as my old friend experienced … even longer.
I suspect in my case I’m not going to take that long. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.
Do I regret doing it?
Nope. It’s over with. I’m already functioning again. The worst thing about the ordeal so far is the catheter, but in the scale of awful things, it’s not that big a deal. There are things far, far worse, and I’m just grateful that I’m only dealing with a catheter and not cancer.
For those who needed to hear this, I hope it helps you.
Wrong kind of tractor, but Midjourney did a good job of imagining the moment.
When I was about 11 years old we lived in a duplex right on the edge of town in an area being developed. Directly across the street was a large empty field, a perfect place for us neighborhood kids to play. With this huge field of dirt, all we needed was a shovel.
I provided that shovel, and we took turns digging. We all wanted to see just how big a hole we could make.
The project took weeks. At first, we called it The Hole, as in, “Let’s meet at The Hole after school.” “Mom, we’re going to go play out at The Hole.” “I did more work on The Hole than you did!”
This hole became quite large, and then someone came up with the coolest idea. With all the construction going on in the neighborhood there was plenty of wood around (scrap and otherwise) so day by day we were able to start covering this hole with a roof. As the roof was built, dirt was piled on top of it so that it couldn’t be seen. It was at this point it stopped being “The Hole” and became “The Fort.”
With the fort in place amid all the weeds and tall grass, it was the best place on Earth to stage mock battles. We armed ourselves with cap guns, squirt guns, plastic battle axes and swords, and then filled that field with wars, insurrections, rebellions and general free-for-all mêlées. The fort was a nexus for our little battles until summer, when a rival gang of kids (older and meaner) took it from us. Our interest in it waned, as we’d discovered new places to play (a creek with a railroad bridge, God help us) and so we finally gave up on the fort. We let the bullies have it.
Then I remember the day we spotted a Caterpillar tractor out in that field, lumbering and squeaking through the tall grass. I stood on my front lawn with my friends, watching in fascination as the tractor pulled its plow back and forth across the field, edging closer and closer to the fort with each pass. Then there was this magic moment when the tractor completely disappeared from our view. From across the field came a terrific Wham!
Little did we realize that we’d created the perfect tractor trap.
The tractor driver came up out of that hole hopping mad, and we ran. Later someone came door to door, inquiring about whose kids had dug the enormous hole in the field. My mom kept her mouth shut, no doubt fearing a lawsuit or something. Later it came out that the bullies who’d taken it away from us got blamed, and were in big trouble.
Ah, karma.
They had to have a big semi-truck looking rig come out and pull the tractor out of the hole. We stood on my front lawn watching that, too. Come next summer, they’d started building more houses there and soon the field was a block of brand new triplexes. It didn’t take five years for the whole area to deteriorate into a slum.
