'It was as cheerful as a beauty clinic. Everyone except me was wearing a mask'

The prostate is one of those things men prefer to hide from women, especially those they love

I CHECKED INTO the hospital on Friday afternoon. I wanted the beloved to leave me at the door and save money on the car park, thinking myself a fearless warrior, but she insisted on carrying my bag to admissions and sitting in reception until I was brought to the semi-private where a blue curtain separated me from another gentleman who was on the same surgeon’s list for the following day.

I assured the beloved that I loved her, with that heroic quality of a soldier before battle, and she went away down the corridor without looking back. Then the nurses came. And the doctors. With questions. Everyone checked my name and date of birth meticulously. I suppose if you’re going to scoop out the innards of a man’s prostate it’s important to make sure you have the right man, although I felt a bit embarrassed answering so many detailed questions about my urine. The prostate is one of those things men prefer to hide from women, especially those they love; not because they wish to spare the women any particular horror, but simply to spare themselves the shame.

But eventually you get used to looking nurses in the eye and answering questions about passing water, and in fact it cheered me greatly that so many people seemed to be interested in me.

When I was alone I lay on the bed and began reading John McGahern’s memoir of his brutal childhood; not everyone’s cup of tea, but at least I didn’t bring Beckett with me.

Myself and the other gentleman spent the evening in dressing gowns, gazing out the window at a chestnut tree, and we were as miserable as if we might be hanged from it on the morrow.

In the morning he was in the toilet while his wife spoke to the nurse. “He’s very nervous,” she said, “He’s never been in hospital before. Please take good care of him.” The nurse assured her she would. And then he emerged from the bathroom. “Hurry up,” the wife said, “you’re delaying the nurse,” and off they went down the corridor, and I was left alone.

The operating theatre was a splendid space. I expected a windowless room with searchlights on the ceiling and ether in the air, but in fact there was a huge glass window, and dainty trolleys and young ladies in blue overalls. It was as cheerful as a beauty clinic, and I could see the blue sky over Dublin, although I couldn’t ignore the fact that everyone in the room except me was wearing a mask. The anaesthetist stuck a needle in my back to freeze my lower body and the surgeon bent low between my legs and dug into the work, tunnelling his way up to the bladder through the only available route.

In the afternoon I got good wishes in a text from a friend; a woman who has had her own troubles. Her daughter lost a baby recently, just weeks after giving birth, and in her grief, still sleeps with the baby’s babygrow.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. The nurses came occasionally, to examine the catheter by torchlight, but I remained awake, imagining the grief of a young girl who sleeps with the babygrow of her dead child, and the silence in Aughawillan graveyard, where John McGahern rests, and I admit I felt very grateful just to be alive.

At 6am the following morning there were workers with hard yellow hats outside the window dismantling a prefab, and myself and my roommate, still attached to our beds with catheters, sat up and watched like uneasy rabbits. We speculated that it might be the sheriff’s men, come to take possession of the entire hospital, and we joked about the prospect of being evicted on to the street, in dressing gowns, with catheter bags in our hands.

And, of course, the General came to visit; swaggered around the bed, and interrogated me about the tubes that were attached to my nether regions.

“Two are for irrigation,” I explained, “and one is for urine.” “Ah yes,” he declared, knowingly, “I almost forgot; a trans-urethral re-section; not a pretty sight. I had it done years ago, but needless to say my biggest problem was that I woke the following morning with a monstrous erection. I managed to conceal it, but can you imagine the pain of being fully distended with that rubber hosepipe still stuck in position.”

“No,” I said, trying to smile, “I can’t imagine that at all.”