Mike  

Mike

Age at Interview: 48
Age at Diagnosis: 48
Background: Mike an NHS manager and registered nurse, married with 3 children. Ethnic background: White British.

Brief outline:In 2006, following a series of tests, Mike was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In April 2007 he had a radical nerve-sparing robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy.

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Mike was delighted to find that he was not incontinent after the catheter had been removed. He was off work for only four weeks.

 



They elected to keep me in or rather they invited me to stay in for one night after catheter removal so that I could have in the safe surroundings of the hospital the experience of going through a full night without a catheter and with bladder filling up overnight so to speak. And then they particularly wanted to check that I could void, empty my bladder properly in the morning. So that was fine. One extra night in hospital, pleasant enough. No big deal. The following morning up bright and early, quite mobile and to my great surprise my first post-catheter removal night had been an entirely dry night. I'd not been led to expect that. I'd been led to expect the near certainty of torrential urinary incontinence for quite some time after catheter removal or after surgery more generally. But my first post-catheter night was a dry night and indeed every night since with only two slight exceptions have been also dry. So I was discharged the following morning after I had demonstrated that I could void my bladder ok and that I was pain free and comfortable. Back home and I've just gone from strength to strength ever since.

And how many weeks did you say you were off work?

I was off work in total for four weeks. So that was 10 days during which I had the catheter and then roughly three weeks after that point. I, I could probably have resumed work earlier than that. Indeed to a degree I did resume work earlier than that because I dabbled at E-mails and odd bits and pieces from home.

Karol Sikora - Prostate cancer
Prostate cancer
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