We were able to squeeze in an appointment with the “top urologist in SLC” only because Dr. Brimley called over for us, and used his personal connection to get us in.
It was on the Monday after Thanksgiving, so the waiting room still had tacky orange and brown decorations everywhere. But while I was waiting for someone to come get me to hear what the doctor had to say about Lou’s health, I watched a plump lady wearing a woolen Christmas sweater take down an orange piece of garland, and replace it with a green one. She looked like the kind of lady who was excited about baking sugar cookies with her grandkids in the coming weeks…
I remember how sad that made me feel.
I’ll spare you some of the controlled drama that took place once the nurse called me back to meet with Lou and his new doctor. But this doctor felt like Lou needed to have his prostate removed — completely. Dr. Brimley’s blood work results (again) showed no cancer cells, but this new urologist said he could see no other way to help Lou. The size of the prostate was so large that it was clearly impacting Lou’s bladder functions, and if we messed around with that for too much longer, Lou’s kidneys could start to factor into the total health equation.
Lou and I were miles apart already, and this news seemed to only increase the distance between us. Lou didn’t want to process with me — at all — about this medical opinion. He was adamant that he didn’t want to have his prostate removed. If there were cancer cells, that would be another story.
I knew better than to push Lou.
I, at the very least, could see that everything about Lou’s life was compressed and swollen with stress and worry, and, this particular health challenge created a dominating fear in him that even he couldn’t touch. It was simply too scary.
The only concession that Lou would make with me was to at least book a surgery date with this doctor. The soonest appointment this doctor had in his schedule was two weeks out. That would give “us” time to process this decision or to find a different solution (if there was one).
Lou left the urology office with a new walking catheter and a deeply depressed and hostile attitude. He went to the office that day to keep up the ruse that he was working, while I went to the clean “coffee and cocoa” shop to try to write another scene for one of my episodes.
Today, I read a journal entry that I wrote from that day. It was one of the plainest entries I wrote during that time. I recounted the details of the doctor visit, and the diagnosis, and, the fact that the doctor wanted to remove the whole prostate. But the last line I wrote in that entry really stood out to me:
