Grandpa's Home!

Just one day after a successful radical prostatectomy, Grandpa Cermak is already home! Grandpa was discharged from CDH on Saturday afternoon and was in his favorite easy chair by 5:00 and feeling pretty good, reporting that the incision area was just "tender." Of course, I'm sure the Vicodin helped too.

Here's Grandpa in his private room at CDH a few minutes before we got him dressed and out the door.



The surgeon visited Grandpa early Saturday morning to see how he was doing, and reported that he was able to remove the entire prostate gland and, hopefully, all of the cancerous cells. Also of great importance, was that the surgeon was able to preserve two very important nerve clusters that are normally attached to the prostate, leaving them completely intact.

The surgeon explained that when he works with a camera via laproscopy, he has significant magnification of the area and that he can actually see the neurovascular bundles better laparoscopically than in traditional, open surgery, and thus was able to save them.

You can see what the surgical set-up looks like here, with the surgeon sitting at the console next to the patient, and here's a close-up of how the four robot arms are placed. Please note that isn't a picture of Grandpa's tummy! It's from this article.

Grandpa will be taking it easy at home for the next week or so, but should have a full and speedy recovery. In the mean time, he's got a stack of movies to catch up on in between his walking therapy sessions. Of course, he especially misses the end of Mustang softball season, and would much rather be coaching third base, but he's glad that he'll be ready to start coaching again in a month when the summer league starts up. Hope you feel better soon Grandpa Cermak! The twins miss you!