News that the King has been in hospital for an operation on his enlarged prostate will bring a faraway look into the eyes of many a chap who, having passed his allotted three score years and 10, has heard the blood curdling offer of what is known to the medical profession as a TURP. It’s quite possible that this is the procedure that the King has undergone or will undergo.
You will, of course, have laughed with the entire Home Guard Platoon of Warmington-on-Sea as private Godfrey once again pulls a sour face and brings his arm down on parade, denied yet again the chance to go for a wee by the heartless Captain Mainwaring. Older readers will recall Bob Pullen in the Archers, his Borsetshire bladder becoming part of an ongoing national joke as he did for farmhands what Godfrey had done for part time soldiers. And who could forget watching poor President Salva Kiir of South Sudan literally pissing himself recently, listening to his very own national anthem? Hoots of laughter.
But it’s not funny, really. And for many it’s not easy to talk about either. Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s masterpieces had whole chunks of real life hacked out of the scripts in order to make sure you simply laughed and weren’t too disturbed by what was really going on all around you.
Private Godfrey undressing at night, for example, packing his sodden underwear in places where sister Dolly won’t find them. The anxious hours spent whenever he went out making sure that his routes took him past the nearest bushes/pub/ill-lit front garden or public toilet. According to the Observer the number of public lavatories funded by local authorities fell from 3,154 in 2015-16 to 2,556 in 2020-21 – a drop of 19% across the previous six years coming on top of earlier reductions – and they’re still reducing. This, the paper says, has caused “major problems for a range of people, including the homeless, disabled, outdoor workers and those whose illnesses dictate frequent toilet use.” You’re telling me!
Perry and Croft’s version of the consequences of an enlarged prostate didn’t quite capture the small, step-by-step narrowing of life’s horizons as sufferers cut their coat of social ambition according to the cloth of steadily increasing immobility brought on by the fear of wetting themselves in public. They didn’t document private Godfrey’s increasing reluctance to go to cricket or football matches, visit Warminster-on-Sea’s thriving theatre or simply go on a bus journey of more than 30 minutes’ duration. A trip to London on a 1940s lavatory-free train would have been out of the question.
And so it is today: poor old Godfrey remorselessly fell victim to what a Royal Society for Public Health report described as an “urinary leash”. One in five people say that a lack of facilities means they restrict outings from their homes. The horror is that as we age we get used to it, rationalise it. Habitually we glance around wherever fate drifts us, looking for a loo or a place to pee in an emergency ‘just in case’.
Isn’t it surprising, even shocking, to discover how brutally easy it is for the abnormal to become the new normal. If you get it, you learn to live with it and take all the precautions you need to. This inevitably means a major reduction in your social and leisure activities. Slowly and surely you become increasingly isolated. Yet pretty well all men will have an enlarged prostate if they live long enough, though it’s very seldom acknowledged, talked about or confronted.
As well as a fear of embarrassment, of course, lies the even deeper, even more enervating fear that prostate cancer is lurking ‘down there’ somewhere.
Medications can help, but none attacks the cause. They all alleviate the symptoms but as the condition worsens they become less effective. The only effective remedy is surgery. And here is where King Charles comes in. The predominant surgery is called a transurethral resection of the prostate – TURP for short – and if you suffer the condition and haven’t heard about it, find out now and try to get one. There are, of course, laser alternatives for use in certain cases.
It sounds horrifying – but it’s a life changer. In a TURP, a combined visual and surgical instrument (resectoscope) is inserted through the penis, under full anaesthetic, into the prostate area and an electrical loop cuts away excess tissue to improve urine flow. You’ll stay in hospital for a couple of nights or so before a catheter is removed and you’re sent packing.
In my case there was no discomfort despite having what my surgeon described as a prostate “the size of a pear” – not very scientific, but I got what he meant. It was marvellous! Steadily, day by day, the situation eased. Within three months I was regularly spending more than three hours in between visits to the loo, and I had rediscovered the joys of a lifetime’s love of wandering city streets, picnicking in urban churchyards, going to plays and concerts and having an uninterrupted night’s sleep.
Old habits die hard. I am only slowly getting out of the habit of making sure I have a pee before I go out and checking to see if there are loos or pubs nearby. But the day I went for a pint and a half of Old Empire IPA in the Reading Wetherspoons I whooped with joy as I took the 45 minute walk back to my daughter’s house without the slightest flicker of wanting to pee. Twelve months on and my family and friends are getting tired of hearing my accounts of my astonishing new, tiny prostate, now reduced to about the size of a pea (pun intended). Yes, I have let slip the urinary leash and can lead a normal life again. Whether by TURP or by laser, welcome to a whole new life, your Majesty.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.