I am beginning to feel a different definition of the “road” in the “Road to Recovery”. Specifically, I am beginning to think about the road to our home in Palm Coast, Florida, where I would normally be living this time of year.
The August 13, 2025 cystectomy and urostomy have permanently changed my life, but will not limit me from doing the things I want to do in my 80s. To get fully prepared to do all those thing, I just need to first add check marks to a long checklist. Most important is surgery at Yale on January 28. Next week I will go to Yale for a sophisticated loopogram, a fluoroscopic procedure. This is a planning procedure to help the surgeon to know what to expect when the surgery takes place the following week.
At some point I’ll explain this in more detail, but in summary, the surgeon, an expert at using robotic surgery, will connect my left kidney to my left ureter thereby eliminating the stricture which currently exists. The surgery is intricate but not nearly as complex as what I had back in August. If all goes well, I’ll be able to return home the day after. There are some risks but the surgeon is outstanding, and I have complete confidence.
Two weeks after the surgery, there may be another loopogram. If everything is as it should be, the doctors will remove the nephrostomy tubing, and I will no longer be dragging tubes and bags with me everywhere I go. The one exception is for the urostomy pouch which I will wear invisibly for the rest of my life. Then my recovered health and I will be ready to head south: the road to my home in Florida.
If you want to browse through other posts about the journey to recovery, I have created a separate page for an index of them. Click here to view.
Epilogue – The images of the road to recovery were generated by Perplexity Pro AI for use in my blog. All articles were written by me.