On arrival at the Saudi German Hospital at 6:30 am, I checked in and was taken to my room in the ward.
At 9:30 am, I was taken to the Radiology department for a chest x-ray (from the front and side).
The operation was scheduled for midday. At 12:40 pm, I was taken to the operating theatre, where the Anesthetist gave me an epidural whilst the rest of the team prepared the warm saline solutions that would be used to flush out my bladder during the operation. I asked to be sedated, but was told that there was no need.
The operation itself began at 1:00 pm. Dr. Hossam did an initial investigation with the cystoscope,
but then realised that the tumor in my bladder was significantly larger than he thought earlier. Hence he decided that instead of removing a small piece for the biopsy analysis, he would cut out as much as possible today, and hence he switched from a cystoscope to a resectoscope.
The operation lasted for 2 hours 15 minutes, with Dr. Hossam giving me a running commentary as I watched the images from the resectoscope on the monitor. He decided to end the operation when he couldn't cut any more of the tumor away, because it was embedded in the muscle wall of the bladder, and he feared that if he cut any deeper, he would perforate the bladder wall.
The reason why the harder that I tried to urinate, the less urine could exit, was now clear - a large piece of the tumor was covering the exit to the bladder, and when the urine was being pushed against the tumor, it completely sealed off the exit to the urethra and penis. This was one of the areas of the tumor that was removed during this resectoscopy.
I then spent an hour in the recovery area, before being returned to my room in the ward. I was given saline and antibiotic drips via the cannula in my left hand, with another saline solution flushing my bladder out via the catheter.
After a restless night (my lower back was incredibly sore after the anesthetic wore off), I was unplugged from the drips and irrigation at about 11:00 am on Tuesday 1st March, so could finally walk around a little. At 12:40 pm, I had a blue fluid (allegedly antibiotics) injected through the catheter into my bladder, and was told to lie for the next 15 minutes on my back, then 15 minutes on one side, 15 minutes on my stomach, and finally 15 minutes on my other side. After 1 hour, I was told to lie another 15 minutes on my back and 15 minutes on my right side (to give the largest remaining pieces of tumor an extra dose), and this fluid was drained out of my bladder after a total of 2,5 hours.
Shortly after that, I was discharged from hospital to go home, with an appointment to revisit on Thursday 3rd March for a checkup.
THOUGHTS
The resectoscope was not as bad as I had feared. It didn't seem real, watching the images from inside my bladder on a large monitor as many large pieces of the tumor were cut away and then extracted for later analysis in the Pathology laboratory.
At 9:30 am, I was taken to the Radiology department for a chest x-ray (from the front and side).
The operation was scheduled for midday. At 12:40 pm, I was taken to the operating theatre, where the Anesthetist gave me an epidural whilst the rest of the team prepared the warm saline solutions that would be used to flush out my bladder during the operation. I asked to be sedated, but was told that there was no need.
The operation itself began at 1:00 pm. Dr. Hossam did an initial investigation with the cystoscope,
but then realised that the tumor in my bladder was significantly larger than he thought earlier. Hence he decided that instead of removing a small piece for the biopsy analysis, he would cut out as much as possible today, and hence he switched from a cystoscope to a resectoscope.
The operation lasted for 2 hours 15 minutes, with Dr. Hossam giving me a running commentary as I watched the images from the resectoscope on the monitor. He decided to end the operation when he couldn't cut any more of the tumor away, because it was embedded in the muscle wall of the bladder, and he feared that if he cut any deeper, he would perforate the bladder wall.
The reason why the harder that I tried to urinate, the less urine could exit, was now clear - a large piece of the tumor was covering the exit to the bladder, and when the urine was being pushed against the tumor, it completely sealed off the exit to the urethra and penis. This was one of the areas of the tumor that was removed during this resectoscopy.
I then spent an hour in the recovery area, before being returned to my room in the ward. I was given saline and antibiotic drips via the cannula in my left hand, with another saline solution flushing my bladder out via the catheter.
After a restless night (my lower back was incredibly sore after the anesthetic wore off), I was unplugged from the drips and irrigation at about 11:00 am on Tuesday 1st March, so could finally walk around a little. At 12:40 pm, I had a blue fluid (allegedly antibiotics) injected through the catheter into my bladder, and was told to lie for the next 15 minutes on my back, then 15 minutes on one side, 15 minutes on my stomach, and finally 15 minutes on my other side. After 1 hour, I was told to lie another 15 minutes on my back and 15 minutes on my right side (to give the largest remaining pieces of tumor an extra dose), and this fluid was drained out of my bladder after a total of 2,5 hours.
Shortly after that, I was discharged from hospital to go home, with an appointment to revisit on Thursday 3rd March for a checkup.
THOUGHTS
The resectoscope was not as bad as I had feared. It didn't seem real, watching the images from inside my bladder on a large monitor as many large pieces of the tumor were cut away and then extracted for later analysis in the Pathology laboratory.
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