William Bell

Dr. Gholami,

It’s been 5 months since I had my prostatectomy with the DaVinci Robotic System and wanted to thank you and give a testimonial about my experience and recovery.

I had my surgery in late September 2008 and spent one night in the hospital. I experienced very little pain after surgery, only slight tenderness at the incision sites. By far the worst part of the recovery is living with the urinary catheter. There was no pain associated with the catheter, just an inconvenience, and although it was only ten days it seemed an eternity.

I was able to get erections and have orgasms starting about a week after the catheter was removed, however not very strong and certainly not sufficient for penetration. The strength of the erections are continuing to improve, although still not quite strong enough for penetration. As far as the bladder is concerned, I wore a small pad 24hrs a day going through maybe three or four a day for the first month, but was down to two pads by the second month. I continued to wear a pad for about 3 ½ months, mostly for “insurance” rather than necessity and have been “pad free” for about six weeks. I had my first PSA a couple of weeks ago and the count was “0”.

One of my big questions for you after surgery was, when could I play golf? You gave me the go ahead after about four weeks and I played my first round at Spyglass Hill exactly five weeks after surgery, here’s a picture of me teeing off on the 4th hole.

At 49 years old I certainly didn’t expect to have prostate cancer, I’m lucky it was discovered and treated early. Thank you, not only for your expertise in performing the surgery, but also for how expeditiously my case was handled.

Sincerely,

William Bell