Part 2

The urologist who did the cystoscopy only does traditional TURP surgery, so I got a referral to a large university hospital's urology department hoping they would be able to perform HoLEP or Rezum. On my first visit to the university, I was in extreme bladder retention with a PVR of over 1,000ml and I ended up leaving that appointment with a foley catheter installed. Not fun! Unfortunately I also learned that they do not have the equipment to do either HoLEP or Rezum and the doctor I was dealing with did not know of anyone in my area who does. The university urologist wanted to schedule me for a robotic simple prostatectomy which entails making 4 incisions in the outer abdomen wall and then cutting into the bladder in order to robotically remove the median lobe in my bladder and then continuing down through the bladder outlet into my prostate to hollow it out. Obviously that is a much more invasive surgery than HoLEP or BipolEP. So I asked if I could continue to search for another urologist who does HoLEP or something less invasive and he said "of course". I found a doctor who does HoLEP, but his earliest appointment for a first visit was in February 2022 with surgeries scheduled out 6 weeks later, which puts me out to late March approaching April. My GP doctor does not recommend being on a foley catheter long term while I wait to see other urologists and I personally wanted to get off the catheter as soon as possible, but I was not interested in having a surgery that cut through my abdomen wall when there are transurethral procedures that can be done much less invasively. So I circled back to the Mayo Clinic and called the urology department and ask simply, "how soon could you schedule me for HoLEP surgery?" The person I spoke with was excellent (like everyone at the Mayo Clinic). She said she would check into it and someone would call me. I got a call from a urology resident doctor the next day who confirmed details of my situation with me and gave me some additional information. This doctor told me that Mayo Clinic had moved their HoLEP equipment from Rochester to a satellite hospital in Mankato and replaced it with BipolEP equipment. The resident doctor said she would find out when I could be scheduled for either HoLEP or BipolEP and someone would call me again. It is my understanding that HoLEP and BipolEP are similar in that they both use a high temperature cutting tool that cauterizes as it cuts and therefore reduces the risk of bleeding. HoLEP uses a holmium laser while BiPEP uses electricity to achieve the high temp, at least that is my understanding of it. (I am NOT a doctor!) The next evening I got a call from a Mayo Clinic urology surgeon. After again verifying some of the details of my situation, he told me he had an opening for BipolEP surgery in Rochester, MN on January 5, 2022. I told him to sign me up! He said he would and that his staff would set up a video teleconference call for us a few days later, which we did. In that video call I was able to show the surgeon the video I recorded of my cystoscopy which he said he could see clearly.