Don't Understand

My father had radiation therapy for prostate cancer last summer and has developed complications from this.  He was having problems with his urine flow and required further surgery that was carried out yesterday.  My dad is 78 years old and I am afraid that sometimes he is not very clear when he tries to explain things to us.  Apparently this complication that he had is quite common for people who have had radiation therapy.

My concern now is his account of what his doctor has told him....I have not talked to his doctor myself but plan to.  Anyway I took him up yesterday and he had the surgery performed.  After surgery he was taken to his room and seemed to be a lot of discomfort but was doing okay...then started to complain about pain on the top of his left leg.  I looked to see if there was anything there and found a bandaged section.  He said the nurse told him that the tool or light (that's what he called it) that the doctor uses is hot and he had laid it on top of the material that was covering dad and it burnt through the material and also burnt his leg??  It is not a big burn, the size of a dime or nickle he said, but it has formed a blister and is very painful...I have not seen it.  I stayed with him all day and my sister brought my mom up in the evening.  Things were good and he seemed to be doing well except for the pain and the discomfort from the catheter.

This morning however he phoned mom and told her that the doctor had been in to see him and told him they had found further complications that had to be addressed and his prostate collapsed.  Now I am really concerned....does anyone know what this is all about...or what to expect from this?  Will he have further complications as a result of this?  Apparently in all the confusion the "tool or light" was forgotten and that is why the burn resulted.  Like I said, dad can be confused sometime when he explains things so I will not know what happened until I talk to the doctor myself....but right now I am just wondering if anyone has experienced anything like this before or can shed any light on this for me. 

When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer the urologist stated to me that if I had radiation therapy and if it did not work he would not do a laproscopic prostatectomy. He was one of those urologists who never wanted to explain anything to the patient. I found out later that radiation therapy damages the prostate tissue such that it is not a separate structure but the remaining parts--capsule, are fused to surrounding tissues. This makes it very difficult to remove the prostate after the radiation therapy. Apparently HIFU is able to deal with treating the prostate after radiation therapy. Check the www.yananow.net site as there is one contributor who would not recommend HIFU for the salvage radiation therapy while both HIFU organizations will strongly recommend it and will give you some stats on their success rate. I am amazed that a surgeon would have attempted the surgery on the prostate.

    My recommendation would be to talk the the surgeon and find out exactly what was done and what the complications were. You can use the excuse that your dad was not clear about the information that he was conveying to yourself and your mom and that you want hear if first hand.

    Unfortunately, radiation treatment can cause peripheral damage to the rectal wall and bladder and some of the sphincters that control the urine flow and voiding of the bowel. Catheter pain can be and is likely due to the nurse putting in a large diameter catheter. The large diameter catheter will poke into the bladder wall and put pressure on the rectal wall creating alot of discomfort. If you could get the catheter changed to a smaller diameter catheter he will find that the discomfort quickly disappears except for the catheter movement within the penis as he moves but this is very mild.  Taping the catheter tube to the leg helps eliminate that problem but you need to tape it in such a way that there is a loop of tube between the tape and the penis.