A selection from
by William Martin
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this is page 182
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We agreed; then, because of pressing commitments,
we backed out. Fred wouldn't have done
that. Fortunately, his tumor was just a knot, and
he is still around to give lessons in friendship.
In the two hours that followed. Dr. Scardino
clamped and tied off veins in the pelvic region,
enabling him to see what was he was doing. He
then inserted a Foley catheter through the urethra
and into the bladder. The Foley catheter is an
ingenious device; made of heavy-duty silicone,
the part that goes into the bladder is encased in a
small balloon which is inflated with water once it
is inside the bladder. This keeps it from slipping
out. As the operation progressed. Dr. Scardino
used it as a lever to move the prostate into position
for the various cuts - all, to my surprise,
made with scissors rather than a scalpel. With
painstaking care, he identified the nerve bundles
and separated them from the gland, then set the
prostate free, snipping the urethra at the neck of
the bladder and again just below the prostate,
which enabled him to remove the troublesome
member from my body, hanging on the catheter
like a hideous bead on a string. After the bladder
neck and the urethral stump were properly prepared,
a new catheter was inserted and inflated. I
never saw the first one; I would get to know this
one well. With the catheter serving as an internal
splint, the bladder neck was drawn down to the
end of page 182
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