Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Yet another medical exam

The morning I left for Switzerland (last Wednesday) I went in for blood and urine tests. I had also booked my appointment for today's "echography" (sonography?) of my bladder and prostate. As I mentioned in my entry as regards my doctor's appointment I lately have moments when I have to go pee right away and can't hold it in very well. Dr. Girard therefore sent me off for "la totale" of tests to see if it was a chemical problem, an organ problem or, God forbid, the cancer coming back somewhere else. As he said we will always have to be on the look out for that. I therefore have spent the days since our appointment with yet another worry...

The blood and urine results looked good so it's not a chemical problem. Unfortunately, in my medically ignorant mind, that made me believe it was more likely a problem with the actual organs and more likely the dreaded cancer coming back.

I loved the conflict of the exam... I was having this exam because I have difficulty holding my water. When I made the appointment for the exam they knew this and their response was that I need to not urinate for an hour before the exam. At all. I explained how difficult that was going to be... anyway I made it...

The bladder echography was easy and he let me pee right afterwards. He said everything was fine with my bladder from what he could see. So now I'm extra worried I've got prostate cancer or something. To top it off he puts on the rubber gloves and hits me with "Mr. Erb you were informed that the prostate echography is done internally n'est-ce pas ?" Um... for some reason no one had mentioned that to me. So now I go from having cameras shoved up my nose and down my throat to having a camera, within a rod which looked to me like a male homosexual's large vibrator, shoved up my ass. Oh well...

In the end, and this is truly the moment to use that term, the results were perfectly fine. My prostate's fine as well.

Basically the problem, at the moment, appears to be that I just drink too much water and too regularly. I wonder if other throat cancer survivors have the same problem. It's a standard cause and effect relationship: drink lots of liquids and you're gonna pee alot and often.

I guess that it was all good news...

Now it's back to the doctor to see if there's anything to do knowing that it isn't a major problem...