Tomorrow's the one year anniversary of my surgery and I had the checkup with my Uro surgeon yesterday. To report on the major items; PSA is undetectable and incontinence is not an issue, but ED is and will continue to be a problem. As Meat Loaf said "Two out of three ain't bad" although he obviously didn't know about
injections when he sang "There ain't no way I'm every going to love you."
It was performed on a Friday morning so it feels like the anniversary today. At this time of the day my wife had already received a call from the surgeon in the operating room letting her know that they were running late. The problem was I had gone into DIC. Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation is a bleeding disorder known in the medical community as "death is coming." It's a weird feeling to think that I (maybe) almost died on the operating table. The surgery took 5 1/2 hours and I was two days in post op as they tried to get my blood pressure from around 70 back up over 90.
The biggest side effect was it effected my memory for a few months - most of last winter is a blur. The doctor said that it was a combination of the extended time under anesthesia and the two days of low blood pressure.
I don't want to scare anyone from the idea of surgery, it's a rare complication with major surgery or traumatic injury. My surgeon has performed thousands of operations and this was the first time he'd faced anything like this (I would have loved to hear the conversation in the room). I saw a blood specialist afterwards and all the tests came back normal. She thinks that it was a one time event, but I don't want to go through another surgery to test that theory.
So one year out and I'm feeling good except for the ED which I'm slowly coming to terms with.
Thanks to everyone on this forum! (just picture me sitting in leather chair, wearing a blazer and doing the Wiserhood clap) You've all been great and have really helped me through this.