bfleish (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:25 pm I spoke to the surgeon today about the insurance company turning down the anesthesia part of the bill. His quote was "I HATE (Insert Insurance Company Name Here)". It seems that they turn down anesthesia for lots of urological procedures. He transferred me to his insurance person who sounded like she knew exactly what to do because she's done it lots of times. I am really hopeful that things will get straightened out.

Question. Insurance paid the surgeon $350.00 for the scrotal orchiectomy. It took him over 2 hours to do the orchiectomy because there was quite a bit of work separating the testicle from the scrotum due to the infection. He told me it was very difficult due to the vascular and nerve supply in the scrotum. If I had been conscious when he discovered how difficult it was to separate them I would have voted for removing the scrotum at the same time. But I never got to vote (although I did vote in the last election). For the first time ever I feel as though the surgeon didn't get paid enough. What do you think?

On a humorous note when the anesthesiologist injected the happy juice and then I was wheeled off to the OR the anesthesiologist started telling the most outrageous, hilarious, fall on the floor laughing castration jokes. Everyone including myself was laughing out loud. Then the anesthesiologist said to me "Good thing you won't remember any of these jokes because the drugs will make you forget them". I guess the Versed didn't work. "What did the penis say to the empty scrotum? Hey Buzz where did Woody go? I seemed to have lost him"

bfleish (imported) wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:04 pm Everyone,

Thank you so much for your replies. This really is a special place and the support is the best!!!

The doc hit the nail on the head on what was making me so darn sleepy. The only reason he knew what was wrong was that he had another patient who experienced the same problem. I'll try to keep it brief:

The problem was a drug interaction with 2 drugs when taken at the same time. I am taking a statin (My cholesterol is just fine but my father died at 60 with terrible vascular disease so I've been taking it preventively for years) and a very low dose hypertensive drug for the same reason. I had just switched the statin drug to the generic because you can get 6 months worth at Costco for $16.00 (and 6 months of the hypertensive drug for $18.00). I don't want to say the names of the drugs (don't need lawyer's caroling at my door right now) but when you take them at the same time they interact (at least with me) and turned me into a sleeping zombie.

The doc suggested stopping the Statin drug till I felt better and then taking the statin in the evening and the hypertenstive drug in the morning and see how that does.

He was still concerned that there might still be an infection so they stole some of my blood (and they even charged me for stealing it) and he wrote a script for an antibiotic just in case.

The drainage from the drain hole is essentially gone. I would say it is maybe a drop or two a day. No more gauze and paper tape!!!

As for what MRT mentioned about applying Androgel. Here is how I do it. At $18/day I try to maximize my dosage. I put on vinyl gloves first. Androgel will not stick to vinyl but sticks to skin very well. I use the tubes instead of the pump. I squirt one tube into my left gloved hand and smear all of it on my right upper arm, shoulder and chest. I rub until the glove runs into friction. That means all the Androgel has been rubbed in or has evaporated. We're talking maybe 20 seconds. Then I repeat with my right hand. When I'm done I take off the gloves and put the empty tubes inside the gloves and tie it off. This way my curious cats can't (or at least they don't) bite into the empty tubes of Androgel in the trash can. The best part is that I don't have to wash my hands when I'm done!!

So my next quandary as the swelling goes down is boxers or briefs? I'm not into commando, sorry. Opinions?