HAIKU
Freely, so freely,
the pee from a penis falls.
Relief is in hand.
© JW 2023
In 1964 the great civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King made a speech that grabbed the attention of the world by the balls. It's called the 'I have a dream' speech. It concludes with the arresting words "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!".
On Thursday July 27th 2023 in a toilet closet on the 4th floor of the Mater hospital in Dublin I uttered similar sounding words with the same poetic flow and I think as much conviction, as much hope and passion and determination and compulsion and expectation as the 35 year old Dr King. On that day however I was dancing to a different tune.
Though I'm all for them, my agenda wasn't civil rights - it was much more personal, visceral, intrisically bodily. The day I'd never thought would come had come - all my Christmases at once. After years of being slave and hostage to my own bladder and prostate I was finally granted universal piddle rights, and what emanated from my quivering lips was an irreverent but heartfelt and apposite twist on Dr King's immortal lines.
"Pee at last! Pee at last! Thank god almightly, I can pee at last". I uttered these words in a Gollum-like hiss so intense they could have burned a hole in the stud wall I was gently headbutting as tears of great joy welled up in me, hardly able to believe what I was saying or seeing or most importantly - doing. As a non believer I don't do miracles, but this was my freakin' miracle!
After around 15 years, in that toilet closet as I stared intently downwards past my crumpled hospital gown at my red swollen penis, newly released from a catheter clamp, I watched a full flow of bloodied piss come gushing out of its tip and cascade noisily - oh so very delightfully noisily - into the bowl below. One - two - three - four - five seconds of pure unassisted, uninterrupted, effortless pain-free pee-lief. A spectacular stream of coagulated blood filled with bits of my prostate then followed, the texture of a rustic pea soup, spluttering and spitting like an unblocked drain in a messy fan shape all around the porcelain bowl - a perfect blood splatter special effect in a slasher movie. Oh the utter bloody relief!
This moment was a long time coming. With no health insurance in a country beleaguered by a broken down national health system I'd waited four and a half years for the operation that takes less than an hour to perform - a 'transurethral resection of the prostate' or TURP for short. A what? I hear you ask. Basically you have a loop of wire shoved up your willy which is then heated by an electric current and so burns away or 'cores out' your swollen prostate to allow your pee to pass through it again.
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| © copyright JW 2023 |
This was a major event for me; the short operation undoubtedly the beginning of a better quality of life. How strange indeed that my post-surgical manhandled member was its physiological focal point, but I didn't give a shit. I'd peed and I'd peed real good and the relief was transcendently wonderful. Pure almost pain free joy after years of chronic debilitating fucking agony - agony worthy of being written about.
In this wee blog I plan to celebrate the simple act of peeing - an essential but oft overlooked bodily function - and in the process to tell the story of my faulty prostate and waterworks - to share my symptoms and experiences of being unable to pee/ pee properly in case there are others who may benefit from an account of my piss awful times - times I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy ... well maybe my very worst.
During my darkest days I have searched the net looking for the personal stories of people who share my condition - 'benign prostatic hyperplasia' - a non-cancerous enlarged prostate gland causing partial blockage to the pee tube - but found none.
There are support groups in which sufferers share basic information about their condition and the treatment they've had, but I think the life changing scale of the condition deserves greater insight.
With 4 billion urinating males on the planet (50% of the human population) there must be at least a few others who could benefit from reading first hand accounts and for whom sharing their stories would be beneficial?
If you're a prostateless woman or a man without a faulty prostate then perhaps this blog isn't for you, but then again it may be worth reading on to find out what urological complications could lie in store as you get older? It is after all a problem many men develop in later life - just look around you next time you go in to a public toilet and shimmy in beside an older man hunched over the urinal, every muscle straining in a futile effort to get the flow going - there as you arrive and still there sweating and suffering silently when you're leaving with your empty bladder and a little smile on your face.
If your prostate is chugging along nicely doing everything it's supposed to do I genuinely envy you and I ask that next time you take a nice big gushing pee REJOICE, ENJOY and CELEBRATE your superpower! Easy pee is not a guarantee.
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| © copyright JW 2023 |
MANY MORE POSTS TO COME - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE FOR UPDATES
If you are enjoying and/ or find this blog helpful please subscribe and contribute if you feel able. Having spent the past weeks connected to a number of prostate related Facebook groups, I've seen that other sufferers are looking for information to help them understand and deal with their condition. I have no doubt there are many - many stories and experiences out there around the world of men. My aim in this blog is to provide a platform for just that. There are so many of us and I really think it would be valuable to share. Thanks
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