I am not naming hospitals or people but if you do go for surgery choose your surgeon wisely.
My surgeon gave me the following stats if I was to choose surgery:
40% chance of impotency, i.e. not able to get an erection.
2% chance of being incontinent after twelve months.
85% chance of being cancer free after ten years.
If the operation was robot assisted through key hole surgery, three days in hospital followed by recovery of around five weeks.
He also thought robot assisted surgery gave a marginally better chance of retaining sexual function.
After surgery and recovery I would suffer from stress incontinence.This means if you stumble or sneeze or somebody slaps you on the back you may get a small spray of urine.
Now I worried about this for some time as the thought of peeing myself repulsed me. However my McMillan nurse put things into perspective when she explained that any woman who has had a baby suffers from stress incontinence.
He also told me I would be suitable for nerve sparing, which is where they try and save the nerve which gives you erections.
Surgery breaks down into three choices, open surgery, keyhole surgery and robot assisted keyhole surgery. With robot assisted keyhole surgery the playing field so to speak is magnified and allows the surgeon to see with great precision what he is doing.
My surgeon left me with no doubt that his choice was robotic assisted and that it was a superior choice to radiotherapy.
Links
Video overview of Da Vinci machine
http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/products/da_vinci_video_overview.aspx
If you have a strong stomach you can watch an actual operation with the Da Vinci robot machine here
http://www.roboticoncology.com/educational-videos/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=965
Finally some humour, watch a Japanese surgeon perform origami with a Da Vinci robot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Bjs99A0k0
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment