No room for Mr. Big Man in the recovery room

Welcome to no man's land
As night falls, so does my blood pressure, precipitously low, and I feel like I’m sinking into a worsening nightmare. I have no idea where this might lead. I fear the worst, that I’m bleeding internally. All the mortar I have carried, the miles I have hiked and the B.S. I have spun mean nothing now. I am in a no man’s land like no other I’ve ever visited and I want out now. But that’s futile. The single thing I can do is lay off the self-administered morphine, which I do, but even this seems to have no result on my blood pressure.

In the morning, the nurses stop giving me a powerful anti-inflammatory drug. Slowly, my blood pressure rises, the nausea abates and I am able to make a few slow, careful forays along the hallways. But my doctor stops by and says he wants me to stay another night.

I leave the next morning, completely dependent on my girlfriend and parents to get me to the car and into the house. They help me eat, drink and shower. They change pee bags. I have not needed this kind of care since I was, literally, still in diapers.

That they are willing to give it to me is deeply moving; that I am able to receive it without falling apart emotionally is somewhat of a mystery to me.

I am deeply humbled, aware of limitations that I have never known, but I am able to keep from crossing that fine line into humiliation. I puzzle over this for days and finally conclude that it’s a product of the great care and love others are giving me and my own willingness to be very open about what I’m going through.

What the hell happens now?
There’s still plenty of apprehension about what lies ahead, though. I am thinking a little about the future of sex, some about my first post-op PSA test in six weeks and a lot about what will happen to my ability to hold urine once the catheter is removed. Twelve days pass quickly and it’s time to lose the pee tube.

The same kind, efficient nurse who presided over my biopsy is on hand to remove the catheter. Lying on an exam table, I squeeze my girlfriend’s hand. The nurse pulls gently. An electric shock sparks somewhere deep inside my abdomen and shoots up my urethra to the tip of my penis. That’s it. The catheter has come out with a single pull.

I lift my head slightly and look down my body, past my shirt, which is pulled high on my chest, beyond my pasty belly where Steri-Strips still cover the surgeon’s holes, over my shaved groin and shriveled manhood to my underwear and workout pants, lassoed embarrassingly around my ankles. What happens now? What the hell happens now?

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My feet, the flattest size 12s on the planet, lie splayed on the table in white socks and sandals, framing my view of the exam room’s wall. I think of all the places they have taken me — from Manhattan sidewalks to Sierra summits to Kona beaches. They have served me well in the past, but now they are just a pair of awkward bookends around a very uncertain future.

I hope they can get me there. I know it’s time to get up and get started, but I am in no hurry to go.

MSNBC.com writer Mike Stuckey was diagnosed with prostate cancer in April. He will chronicle his battle in "Low Blow," a series appearing every other Wednesday. In the next installment, he faces a fear he didn't know he had.

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