While recovering from prostate cancer surgery, Dana Strout finds a creative solution to his incontinence.
Dana Strout is a Maine native, with roots in this state going back over 300 years. He is a practicing attorney in the Camden/Rockport area, specializing in construction law. He is a photographer working in 19th and early 20th century processes, and was an on air programmer for many years on WERU Community Radio. He currently lives with his wife Dorie and two cats in Camden, and enjoys gymnastics, a warped sense of humor and a good story.
This story originally aired on July 19, 2019 in an episode titled “Private Parts.”
Story Transcript
Well, it’s January 3, 2003, a cold, winter night. 6:00 in the evening I’m having dinner with my wife, the telephone rings. I pick it up. It’s my doctor. He says, “Well, I got your biopsy reports back.”
I said, “Oh, how did I do?”
He said, “Well, you've got prostate cancer. There's a lot of it and it’s really aggressive. But, given your age and the shape you're in, we should be able to manage it pretty well.”
I’m thinking, “Manage it?” Incontinency, impotency. This will be interesting. So I go back and I sit down.
My wife says, “Who’s that?”
I say, “Oh, that was the doctor. He says I've got prostate cancer. Can I have some more potatoes, please?”
She says, “What?”
I said, “Yeah, give me the potatoes.”
She says, “Wait a minute. You’ve got prostate cancer?”
I said, “Yeah. There's nothing we’re going to do about it tonight. We’ll go see the doctor later. Can have the potatoes?”
“Okay.”
So this is what started what I thought would be a long, dark and humorless winter, but I was wrong, at least part of it.
She says, “We got to tell somebody.”
I said, “No.”
Now, my wife, if she has a hangnail, she has to tell her friends. She says, “We got to tell your mother.”
“No.”
“Your brother.”
“No.”
“Your sisters.”
“No.”
“Your friends.”
“No.”
“Your partner.”
“No.”
“Your secretary.”
“No.”
“We got to tell someone.”
“No.”
Now, I’m a pretty task-oriented guy and so, to me, that translates, “Okay, this is my disease. I'll manage it. I'll do the research, I'll find out what I need to know and we’ll go from there.” And so I did.
I get right into the computer, I do the research. After three weeks, I knew as much as I knew after the first ten minutes. If you have it out, you got eight to ten years. If you have seeds, you got eight to ten years. If you do nothing, you've got eight to ten years. I’m looking at it thinking, “Hmm, I know a lot of guys who have had it for a long time so I don't believe any of this stuff.”
And the reality was I never thought I would die. Never. Not one instance. But I was concerned about a couple of those management issues: incontinency and impotency.
So I go to the doctor. We do the research. We talk to him. We look at the different ways and then I head down to Johns Hopkins and on April 15 I have it out. They put me under, they wheel me back to my room. I got a roommate. Now, at Johns Hopkins it’s all prostate cancer surgery.
So they wheel me in at 4:30 in the afternoon. I got a roommate. He leans up on an elbow and he says, “What are you in for?” And he passes out.
Well, okay. I’m in this Demerol fog. I don't know what the hell is going on.
Morning, I wake up. And as I start to come to, I’m curious. What do I look like? So I pull back the sheet.
There's a couple of drain tubes. I didn’t realize Home Depot had had a sale on garden hoses because I got one as a catheter, and that thing is as big as my thumb and I’m not exaggerating.
So I spend a week there and I go home. When I get home, I know I've got another week to have the catheter in. They say, “You just go to the doctor. They'll take it out. You'll be okay. You're going to have a little incontinence.”
But I’m wondering what ‘a little’ incontinence is. Is it like when the dentist says, “Oh, this will hurt a little,” as they're strapping you in? Or just what does it mean?
So I go to the doctor to have it out and Nurse Nancy is there. She says, “Nothing to this. I've done it a hundred times. You're going to have a little incontinence.”
I said, “Okay.”
She says, “Here’s a pad to put on because, after I take it out, you're going to pee a little, I think.”
I said. “Okay.”
So she takes it out and, believe it or not, seamless. Doesn’t hurt. You don’t feel anything. And she sticks the pad down my shorts. I get up and do I score. I mean that thing is soaked. I mean not a little. It’s soaked.
She says, “You may want to stop by the Rite Aid.” So I do.
The wife is in the car, I go in and I’m looking. She says, “Try Depends.”
So I walk over to the wall and they got the Depends there, but to the left of it they’ve got the women’s pads. That’s the Pro section. They’ve got long, they've got short, they've got wide, they've got super, they've got thick, double thick, super extra thick, super extra thick absorbent.
Now, I’m an obsessive compulsive, so what does an obsessive compulsive do? I bought one of each. I had about a five-foot stack of these things in my arm as I hobble over to the counter and, on my tiptoes, I get them up there.
And I hear this voice. “Does this person have Medicare?” And around from the back this little old lady appears.
I said, “What?”
She says, “Does this person have Medicare?”
I said, “No, Ma’am, it’s me.”
She said, “Oh, you poor dear. My husband had the same thing. Don’t worry. 90 days you'll be dry.”
I said, “Okay.”
So we go home and I’m sitting in this wet pad, so as soon as we get home I change them out. I get a nice, super absorbent one. I stick it down there. That’s pretty good. I’m feeling okay until I move. Now, the thing with this is if you're standing up, like I am now, there's no problem. If you're laying down, there's no problem. It’s only when you flex. So you flex and you squirt. You flex, you squirt, you flex, you squirt, you flex, you squirt.
All I can do is sit on the couch and watch TV. Every time I move, guess what?
A day-and-a-half later, I look down and I've got the world’s worst case of diaper rash. I mean that thing should be in a textbook. I’m looking at it thinking, “This ain’t going to work. I got 89 days to go so I got to figure something out.”
I’m smart, right? I’m a lawyer. We figure things out. So I hobble down to the kitchen and I get a great, big, white trash bag. Then I hobble back into the bathroom and get a great big thick bath towel. Then I hobble over to the kitchen, I reach up and I take down the box of Ziplocs. I take them upstairs to the TV room, put the towel out. First, I put down the plastic bag and I put the towel on, take all my clothes off, because I got to dry out. I mean, I cannot go like this.
So I take the baggy and what do you do? You zip it on. Now, when I move, now, I can see myself. I can see what’s happening. And after a day or so of sitting there, I’m pretty good. I go to sleep with the thing. It’s okay. But it’s not real good for walking around because it wants to come undone. We got to figure something else out.
All right. I’m smart. I’m a lawyer, so I’m sitting there thinking, thinking. I got it. Unlubricated condoms. That will work. I'll just put one on and tape it. Unroll it a little bit, a few inches, and when I move, it will be fine.
When you've had cancer your friends say, “If you need anything, give me a call.” So I do. I call my buddy Mark.
“Hey, Mark, you want to take me to the drugstore?”
Mark is a discreet person. He doesn’t ask why. He knows I've had the surgery. I did tell him. And we go over and I head to the Family Planning section.
He says, “A little optimistic, aren’t you?”
I said, “No, no, no. I’m going to buy some condoms, some unlubricated ones, so I can tape them on the end of my dick so I don’t pee on everything.”
He says, “Whatever,” and walks off. He's not going to be part of this shtick.
So go through and I find a box, just what I’m looking for. 36 Trojan Unlubricated Condoms. I didn’t know they were that expensive. So I got money and I walk up to the counter. I put them down, the girl says, “Anything else?”
I said, “No, this should get me through the weekend,” and so I leave.
He takes me home. I go upstairs, I sit down in my favorite TV spot. Now, I’m careful. I still got my bag, I still got the towel. I tape this thing. I take a little quarter-inch piece of tape. This is not a surgical operation. So I unroll the thing a little bit. I put it on the side there, tape it, and I’m good to go. It’s freedom. I get up, I squirt. Sit down, I squirt. If that’s enough, I take it off, put on a new one. It is like a kid that’s just learned to ride a bike.
I can go out to dinner. I mean, I can go out to dinner now with friends and have a good time. All I have to do, if I move too much, go to the restroom and change. So I go around with eight or ten of these in my pockets all the time.
And things are feeling pretty good. I can move. Of course my diaper rash starts to go away. I’m feeling pretty good about this. And so my wife invites me back to the marital bed. I'd been relegated to the studio because the last thing you want is a 53-year-old incontinent guy sleeping next to you, right? It’s just not going to work. Poor mattress, you know. I don't have to tell you about that.
So I’m there the first night in bed. 3:00, the call of nature comes so I get up and I start to shuffle off into the bathroom, like all us guys do.
Now, I have to regress a little bit here. When you've had this surgery, one of the things they do is they have to cut your ureter off the bladder then sew it back on. One of the fears I had, and one of the fears all the guys have ever either mentored or talked to about it and have is this, what if it comes apart inside? They have to go back in and redo the whole thing. I mean this is serious major abdominal surgery so you're really afraid you're going to come apart.
So I do what every guy does. I shuffle into the bathroom, eyes half closed, and every guy here will understand this. You reach down, you pull up the toilet seat, put your hand out, lean against the wall, got your eyes closed, you’re positioned right above the toilet and you let it go. And God, does it feel good. It’s the first time and it’s just going.
Then it dawns on me, there's no sound. There's no sound! I've come apart! I’m peeing inside of me!
And just as I have that thought… now, you've all seen these World War II movies with the submarine and the torpedo as it heads towards your favorite boat? Well, I mean to tell you when that condom took off, it put those torpedoes to shame. That thing buried itself so deep in the water and made so much noise it woke up my wife. And I’m in there laughing, and I’m laughing and I’m laughing and I’m laughing.
And she says, “What the hell is going on?”
So I tell her the story and she starts laughing. I walk over to her in bed and we’re both laughing and we’re holding each other. I think that was the moment we knew it would be okay. Thank you.