You Don’t Cure Strictures…You Manage Them
I have always enjoyed pretending to talk about something completely ridiculous, but in a serious tone, in front of strangers. In fact, on my first trip in an airplane to Washington D.C. for a Key Club convention, the friend I went with told me, “John, if don’t start acting normal, I am not going to be seen with you.” As a resident I had this “skit” I’d do with the chief resident when we found ourselves in a crowded elevator of patients, residents and employees at Talmadge. I had a three year old son at the time and the skit involved speaking of him to the chief resident as if my son had gonococcal urethral stricture disease.
“Doug, I want to thank you for seeing my son in the clinic today. His stream had gotten down to a dribble and that watering pot perineum of his is making him have to wear diapers again.”
“No problem John. Man oh man does he have one bad ass stricture. He’s a trooper though; he tolerated an internal urethrotomy in the clinic today like a champ. Y’all can take the catheter out when he stops bleeding. Is he still self-dilating at home with Van Buren sounds?”
“Yes he is, well that is until the 10 French won’t go, then his mother uses the filiforms and followers to get him back up to a 16 French. That Blandy you did on him, although I appreciate your efforts, was a lot to go through and then still have to keep up the dilations.”
“I understand John but your son should have thought about all this before he went about catting around. His stricture is pan urethral and very tight. He may end up with s perineal urethrostomy with the stricture he’s got.”
“Doug, what makes this so hard for his mother and me is that he is only three.”
“Well John, as my mother bed used to say, “You make your bed.”
Rule: Gonococcal urethral strictures-The gift that keeps on giving.
Prostate Diaries 