Long Day

The next morning (Wednesday, January 28th, 2009), I called the office of Dr. Brian Kowal right around 8am as instructed the night before. As I was on the phone with the receptionist, though, Dr. Kowal himself called and said to come on down right away, but to first give some blood across the hall from his office and to not eat anything. Dr. Kowal's habit of excellent communication has continued throughout this entire process. So, Teresa and I headed down to the hospital. I took my backpack, prepared for the long waits that never happened. Talk about a jam packed, crazy day.

After giving blood, we met with Dr. Kowal, gave him my old ultrasounds (8 months old), and went through my complex history. I should mentioned that I had an orchiopexy on the left side when I was 8 years old. My testicle had gotten knocked back up and had to be brought back down surgically. There is a statistically relevant correlation between orchidopexy's and testicular cancer too. Dr. Kowal and Dr. Seigne (pronounced "Sing" -- his attending), looked over everything and returned with the news. They concurred that it was a tumor. The calcifications in the testicle had become much more course over the previous 8 months, and only in hindsight were they able to see the suggestion of something developing on the old ultrasound. In any case, they recommended that the testicle be removed, and they wanted to do it that day. Holy crap. Teresa and I were both pretty scared, but I knew that it had to happen. Dr. Kowal recommended that I bank some sperm before the surgery and said that they were waiting for me up in the "production room." After that, we were to head directly down to the surgical waiting room.

So, Teresa and I headed up to the OB/GYN section of DHMC where we met with a PA who talked to me about the virtues and shortcomings of sperm banking. Before we knew it, we were in a small room with quite a bit of...um...aids. Anyway, the job was done. As we walked out, we passed an entire gaggle of nurses that all looked at us as if to say either "We know what you just did," or "he's the one with cancer (in a whisper of course)". As we entered the main hall, Dr. Kowal rushed up and said, "we're ready for you in surgery." He walked us down to the surgical check-in and put us at the front of the line. After only moments, I headed back to a pre-op room where I changed and met my wonderfully nice surgical staff. Teresa was there too. I remember them rolling me out of the pre-op room, but it all fades to nothing after that. I have some faint memory of seeing Dr. Seigne (my surgeon) before the surgery.

I awoke in a post op room and was grogged out for a while, but soon Teresa and my nurses appeared. I was definitely in pain, but I didn't feel like I had been hit by a truck or anything. So, when offered the option to have my CATscan that day, I said, "let's do it." I hadn't had anything to eat or drink for quite some time, so the tang-flavored constrast die tasted quite good. Roseanne, my nurse, was very, very nice. Shahid, Begem, and Kolene showed up too! Teresa's mom came by to check in as well. After my CT scan, I was the last patient there. Shahid went out to find Teresa's car to clean off all of the snow from the huge snowstorm that day. Begem and Kolene helped to get us out the car. And Teresa shuttled me home to her house, where I would spend the next couple of days. Teresa was deathly afraid of crashing on the way home, so she crept down her long, steep driveway at 1 mph. The seatbelt didn't feel so good on my incision, but she delivered me safely. There I zoned out and ate a delicious pizza. Obviously, I wish that my family had been there, but being with the Rodriguez's was second only to that.