Green Light Means Go

Last Thursday I had GreenLight laser surgery.

“GreenLight” sounds cheerful, doesn’t it? Like permission to cross the street, the “go ahead” to begin a new project, or reassurance from your accountant that you can afford another vacation.

It does not sound like a minimally invasive prostate surgery that ends with a catheter.

For the squeamish among you, I promise I will not describe the surgery. Or the catheter. I will simply say that before last Thursday I had never wanted one and now that I’ve had one I feel completely vindicated in my opinion.

The operation itself was remarkably easy, mainly because I slept through it. This is my preferred method for dealing with medical procedures, boring movies, and several classes in business school

Then I woke up.

The good news was that the surgery had gone well. The less good news was that I had acquired a new traveling companion: the catheter.

We went everywhere together. We ate together. We slept together. We took walks together.

There are relationships in life that deepen with time.

This was not one of them.

I counted the hours until we could go our separate ways.

On Friday, that day arrived. The catheter came out, an event I will also decline to describe except to say that I did not ask to keep it as a souvenir.

Then something wonderful happened.

I went to the bathroom.

It might not sound like an accomplishment deserving fireworks, a marching band, and a congratulatory telegram from the President. But after prostate surgery, you develop a greatly revised definition of success and, at 86, you learn to appreciate victories wherever you find them.

And I’m not complaining.

Well, obviously I am complaining. I’ve just written an entire blog about it.

But I’m also grateful.

Modern medicine has many miracles. Some are dramatic: new hearts, new hips, lives rescued from terrible diseases.

Others are quieter.

Sometimes the miracle is simply standing in your own bathroom and thinking “Wow. That works better.  And I didn’t have to spend an entire week in the hospital.”

And sometimes happiness is as simple as saying adios to a medical accessory you no longer need.

Last Friday I was singing most of the way home

Alan