Vasectomy

Wow! What a post THIS one is gonna be, eh?

Yep. I finally did it.
I’ve been talking about it off and on for many years, but never had the great insurance and/or time (so I thought), or just a matter of it slipping my mind.
Finally, here I have 2 weeks off work, AND some good insurance…
The initial consult was just $40, and then $40 more for the procedure itself.
I had always thought this would take a week (mostly in bed) to recover, and some times that can be pretty tough with my teaching.
I called up my primary care doctor only to find they couldn’t do it, but referred me to The Urology Team, and
the Jollyville location is closest to my home.
I gave them a call Early December, and the quickest they could get me in for an initial consult was Dec 21st. which actually turned out to be perfect, since that was the first day of my two holiday weeks off works.
Went in for the consult at 10:40, and Dr. Giesler told me what to expect, how to prepare, etc. Then an extremely short/quick physical exam, and I was out the door, with actual procedure scheduled for the next day (Tue Dec 22). I was half hoping to get Dr Chopp or Dr. Wang or Dr. Hardemann — I mean, with names like those at a urology center, you just have to wonder if these guys legal change their names, or just some odd coincidence?! You just can’t make this stuff up! =)
That evening I went shopping with a list of items from my “prep guide”…. jock strap, spray-on analgesic, Advil, frozen bags of peas and corn (yes, THAT was recommended!), and Dial antibacterial soap. After getting back home I showered.. spent 10 minutes with the antibacterial soap on the… uh… target area, and then…. as Dr. Giesler said.. the most fun part of all this.. the shaving. And for those of you who’ve never put a razor to it… uh.. yeah… I now have a whole new respect for the women who do this on a regular basis! wow! Needless to say I nicked myself more than two or three times, and at one point even said out loud “Wow! I bet I’m bleeding more now than I will be during the surgery!” Anyway, that ordeal went on much too long, but it was the last thing for the day
The next day, another 5 minutes in the shower with the antibacterial soap, and off to the clinic. I wanted to be sure to get there an hour earlier than my appointment so I could get that extra Xanax to help calm me down… of course, with that, it meant no driving myself home afterwards, so, yeah… uh…. who do you take to the urology center, and sit with in the waiting room for an hour while you’re about to have yourself snipped? Actually, I COULD think up a few people, but my first two choices weren’t available… and I am quite close with my sister, so she made the sacrifice and carted me around. When we first arrived there was a couple things to sign, blood pressure, and then the pills. After about only 30 min I was called back.. and actually a little worried that the pills hadn’t had time to take full effect?!
Once in the room I was asked to drop my pants, lay on the bed/table and the nurse sprayed me (probably iodine), covered me, then left. A few minutes later Dr. Giesler came in, just a minute of quick chat and he was off to work… we kept some kind of random chat going the whole time (I was only in that room about 40 min total! — and the operation itself seemed like maybe 15 min?). First he found what he was looking for in the scrotum, slight pinch/burn as he injected local anesthetic. I could feel a little pull here and there, but nothing more than you might feel if someone was touching your arm, and before I knew it he said he was done with that side, and on to the next! Ouch.. another injection? yeah.. not overly painful I guess, but I’d always prefer even “sting”-FREE. Another couple of minutes and he was done! He said it went without incident, and I was really amazed at how quick and really fairly painless the whole thing was. I was awake the whole time with only the local anesthetic, and when done, another nurse came in to sit me up, take a couple minutes to make sure I was fine, and then out the door with me walking on my own. Well — jock strap on to help keep everything fairly immobile and protected.
Sister drove me to Walgreens to pick up a prescription of Vicodin just incase there was pain, then dropped me off at home where I climbed in to bed to take it easy for a while. Guess I fell asleep for a couple hours. Everything was fine later too… not really any pain, but perhaps a little discomfort. Put a bag of frozen corn in the area to help sooth things. that whole evening went very well… Didn’t take (or need) any pain meds at all, and I could walk around fairly well, although I purposefully took things very slowly.
The next day (Wednesday) was about the same… moving about quite a bit more, and then fortunately most of my time was spent in front of the computer doing various things. I did get a bit of a fever, but wasn’t sure if that had more to do with the fact I was just about fully naked in 70 degree temps. (Winter, ya know). So turned up the heat a bit, threw on a few layers of clothes, took 4 Advil, and felt much better over the next hour or so. Later, I began to feel a bit more discomfort, as I had thought maybe I could go without the jockstrap by now.. I guess I got one with a smaller waistband than I needed? Or maybe they’re suppose to fit REALLY tight around the waste, but UGH! I felt like the tight elastic band was cutting off circulation past my waist! — and so had taken it off for a bit… probably not the best thing… Several hours later a noticed a little bruising… it’s listed as a normal thing, and maybe would have naturally appeared anyway, but I wonder if it was brought on by that lack of extra support for a while. Needless to say, I put the supporter on again, and situated it to a more comfortable fit.
It’s now Thursday (day 3) … and the last “big day” of the whole thing. Most the post-op paperwork just lists what to do / not do up to Day 3, and Dr. Gielser verbally added some other things like “probably best no sex for 10 days” – don’t think that’ll be a problem at the moment… and should probably wait that same time for really hitting the gym again (since I had started getting back to a couples hours there at a time). Today is not much discomfort… just something brief every now and then. Still no other pain meds needed, and walking around more easily.
This will be the last thing I post about it unless some other interesting thing happens… the only “next steps” are to take two semen samples after 15 ejaculations, and another after 10 more, and get those to the clinic to verify “no sperm”. And with that, I’ve probably said too much already. ;)

– David