28th November 2020, St Anthony’s Hospital, Surrey, England.
After a rough week in hospital with the cellulitis returning, it was time to update the professor. I haven’t seen him since the robotic surgery in March.
It was a gorgeous sunny morning as I made my way round the M25. It’s a journey I’ve made fifty times or more over the last year. It’s been exactly a year since I woke up after my first operation too.
The restrictions at St Anthony’s are still completely over the top. There’s no excessive waiting, only a five minute window before your appointment. Everyone is funnelled through a one way system. Temperatures are taken, and masks are handed out.
I sat in my own two metre exclusion zone and waited for the prof. I think he’s been running late for every surgery appointment I’ve ever had with him. That’s a good thing though, he likes to take as much time as he needs to make sure everyone’s happy.
Saturday clinic.
I explained what had happened over the last week, and that all the urology doctors wanted to know about him. In fact, they were far more interested in hearing about the prof than they were about me. I’m clearly in the presence of greatness…
I’ve been prescribed a new set of antibiotics. Alongside the flucloxacillin, I now have a course of co-amoxiclav. That combination is probably the strongest available to deal with cellulitis. Once that’s all over, I’ll be on penicillin-V for the long term.
The prof gave me a quick physical exam too, no signs of recurrence (woo). Plus, everything is healing as expected. I’ll always take good news!
He suggested that I start wearing some compression gear to move the lymphatic fluid around my right leg more. Hopefully that will get things back to normal in the bollocks department.
Last Monday, I was almost back to normal. Then, the cellulitis reappeared. The prof assures me that things should bounce back once the infection is under control, so that gives me hope. I was getting quite used to having normal sized bollocks.
*Normal for me that is.
The clock has been reset on the CT scans now, so I won’t have another one until the end of February ’21. The results of last week’s scan are being discussed on Tuesday, so fingers crossed for no news being good news. The recent cellulitis complicates things a bit…
Interesting side note: On the urology/oncology speaking circuit, I’m apparently known as the man that went out running with a redivac drain. How’s that for a claim to fame?
Another interesting side note: Nothing seems to work better on scrotal edema than erections.
Right, I’m off to buy some tights.