The Jaffa Chronicles

It’s been three months now since the op, so I thought I’d pen a quick update on the topics nearest and dearest to me.

ED

Downstairs is working OK. As well as can be hoped, I guess. The hospital gave me SILDENAFIL (‘pencil lead’ as we like to call it round here) and the GP gave me a repeat script of the same. $20 for 12 tabs. They get me to about 80-90% of what I used to be, which is fine. Without a tab, I’m at 60%. Alcohol pretty much kills off their usefulness, so the morning after a big night nothing is happening – tablets or no. But that’s to be expected. I’m told that it’ll be 1-2 years before I’m fully recovered but I’m not overly bothered as the tablets are taking up the slack (so to speak).

Exercise

I gave up the recommended one-on-one physio sessions in favour of Pilates classes. Initially this was a good move. The class was nice and tight – 3 or 4 post-op fellas, a nice instructor with the patience of a saint and a set of exercise designed to beef up things in the pelvis department. Each session was much the same – we would rotate around various machines doing stuff for a handful of minutes. The day after the first session my legs were as stiff as boards. I had no idea how out of shape I’d become in a pretty short space of time. This was depressing. Almost as depressing as catching myself in the mirror – belly falling out of my top as I reached over to stretch out. Fat fuck. Anyway, next week I went back to do it all again, and the day after I was fine. No stiffness. Great. I marked that down as an improvement. I kept it up for a few more week but then stopped. I felt that it wasn’t working for me. I don’t know if you’ve been a gym recently. My old physio is located in one of these places. I had to walk through it to get to his office (do physio’s have offices?). These places are massive. Three floors. Bike studios. Kick-boxing classes. Aerobics classes. God-knows-what classes. Machines and weights everywhere. Ropes! Banging music turned up to 11. Super-fit boys and girls loving life and lycra at the top of their game. You get motivated just being in there. And then there was my Pilates class. No music. No chat. No buzz. No lycra. It couldn’t have been more different to the big cathedrals of fitness that are all over the city. I don’t know what I was expecting but the class had become a downer. So, I stopped showing up. Half the battle with fitness is motivation. And I wasn’t finding any there. So I went back to what I know. I went back to the pool. Twice this weekend. YAY. I am so happy. Primarily because I know that it’s repeatable. I get a buzz from it. I can do it 7 times a week without anything breaking. Heck, I even enjoy the curious looks that I get – ‘Has that guy been in a knife fight?’ – their heads snapping away as I meet their gaze. Hey, I’m not saying don’t try pilates. You definitely should. It’s just not for me.

Waterworks

I never experienced much of an incontinence problem. I put this down to two things. Actually, three things when you add in Lady Luck. The other two being the skill of my surgeon ( the ‘I’ve spared everything’ guy). And a pretty decent core – the result of a fair amount of regular swimming beforehand. To put a figure to it – about 10-12km a week when it was part of my daily routine. If I was going to make a recommendation to anyone staring down the barrel of an upcoming surgical procedure, I would say – get in the pool. Take lessons. Buy some fins. Search for ‘dolphin kicks’ on youtube. Learn dolphin kicks. Do dolphin kicks. Then do some more. And then sit-ups. Months before the surgery, my routine went to shit. I thought – hey what’s the point? They’re going to be cutting through my stomach anyways. I may as well enjoy all the things that I won’t be enjoying after the surgery. Like drinking. And porn. And generally feeling sorry for myself and letting myself go. If I had my time over, I wouldn’t do that. I’d be as fit as I could be. I’d be in such good shape that the surgeon would be thinking ‘seems a shame to mess this up…’. Anyway, what’s done is done. I’m now retrofitting the fitness that I pissed away before the op. And that’s OK. I’ll get there. But I digress. Back to the subject at hand – waterworks. In the last three months, I’ve pissed myself on about three occasions. And there’s a common thread in all cases. In short, I’d had drinks. And fallen asleep in the chair. The combination of booze and gravity resulting in wet pants. The first time, it was messy. Lots of piss. Fortunately, I was at home in front of the TV. The last time, it was less messy. Just a bit. Anyway, if I want to not have this happen, I just need to not get wankered and fall asleep upright in my clothes. The simple solutions are the best!

Which brings me nicely to my update on the demon drink.

Before the op, I was told that alcohol and coffee were going to be a problem – being irritants to the bladder. So I should prepare for a life without either. This was a bit of a heart-breaker for me. My entire social life rotates around these things. So where are we at three months on? In short, we’re kinda back to where we were before. In the weeks immediately after the op, beer wasn’t a good option for me. The volume was really uncomfortable on my reshaped bladder. So I cut it out and filled the void with wine. But as the weeks and months passed, I found that I could handle more volume. A pint here. A pint there. A couple of pints here and there. And after three months, I’m more or less back to where I was before the op. These days, I can drink a $12 pitcher of Tiger and go to the loo with the same regularity as before. Admittedly, my eight-pint days are behind me. But that’s no bad thing. And coffee is similarly OK. I only have one a day anyway. I know people that have eight a day. But that’s not me. One a day is fine. So it’s not the nightmare that it might have been. The dire warnings of me needing to reshape my social life to accommodate my reshaped bladder were overbaked. Thank fuck for that.

Next milestone is a PSA test in another 3 months.