<h2 style=”color:#ff4500;”>🔥 The Day My Sternum Got Jealous of My Bladder 🔵</h2>
<p><em>(By a Man Who Can Finally Pee Like a Fire Hose Again — And Write Cursive in the Snow ❄️✍️)</em></p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
About seven months ago, I underwent what I now consider to be the <strong style=”color:#008000;”>single greatest medical intervention</strong> this side of Lazarus.<sup>[1]</sup> A prostate operation. Not the flashy kind with lasers and TikTok influencers dancing in scrubs. No, mine was the kind where you wake up groggy and five minutes later realize your <span style=”color:#0000cd;”>bladder empties like Niagara Falls</span>. 💦
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
I’m not exaggerating. Before the surgery, urinating was a three-minute opera of hope and disappointment. I’d stand there, waiting for something — <em>anything</em> — to happen. By the end, I’d passed a tablespoon and developed a personal relationship with the bathroom grout.<sup>[2]</sup>
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Then came the operation.<br>
Suddenly: <strong style=”color:#ff1493;”>FIVE SECONDS.</strong><br>
<strong style=”color:#000000;”>WHOOSH. 🎉</strong><br>
<strong style=”color:#800000;”>DONE.</strong><br>
A full evacuation. I nearly cried. Mostly because I didn’t need to anymore — my bladder wasn’t holding back two quarts of liquid betrayal.
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
But this isn’t a story about my bladder (although it now deserves its own Instagram).<br>
This is a story about my <strong style=”color:#a52a2a;”>sternum</strong>. 🦴
</p>
<h3 style=”color:#008080;”>💥 The Sternum Incident (Or: That One Time I Chest-Bumped Gravity)</h3>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Roughly a year ago, I did what any man does in his 80s:<br>
I <strong>ran into something</strong> and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt.<sup>[3]</sup> My sternum — that noble breastbone guarding my heart like a bony knight — took a direct hit.
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
It swelled. It thickened. It ached. I couldn’t sneeze without seeing God. For months it felt like I’d grown a <em>second, meaner sternum</em> right on top of the first.
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
I figured it would stay that way forever — a permanent bump to remind me I wasn’t 25 anymore, and that doorknobs are not to be trifled with.
</p>
<h3 style=”color:#ff8c00;”>🕵️♂️ Then… something odd happened.</h3>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
I noticed just recently that my sternum? It’s <strong style=”color:#2e8b57;”>back to normal</strong>.
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
No bulge.<br>
No pain.<br>
No throbbing when I laugh at inappropriate times.<br>
Just a perfectly average, unimpressive chest plate once more.
</p>
<h3 style=”color:#dc143c;”>🤔 Coincidence?</h3>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
At first, I chalked it up to time. But then the <strong>wild thought hit me</strong>:
</p>
<blockquote style=”font-size:20px; color:#00008b; font-style:italic;”>
Could my prostate surgery have somehow… healed my sternum?
</blockquote>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Think about it.<br>
My body, relieved of its nightly bladder torments, finally had the energy to focus on <strong>other problems</strong>.
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Maybe my bladder sent out a memo:
</p>
<blockquote style=”font-size:17px; color:#4b0082;”>
“Hey team, we’re finally under control. Sternum — you’re up next.”<br>
“Copy that. Mobilizing calcium and collagen repair.”<sup>[4]</sup>
</blockquote>
<h3 style=”color:#9932cc;”>🧘♂️ The Mind-Body-Bladder Connection</h3>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Science may scoff.<sup>[5]</sup><br>
But I say: don’t underestimate the <strong style=”color:#1e90ff;”>power of relief</strong>.
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Once my bladder was happy — truly, joyfully empty — my whole body was lighter.<br>
I was sleeping better.<br>
I was walking more.<br>
I was humming in elevators. 🎶
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
And perhaps in that holistic glow of post-urinary bliss, my sternum just… decided to heal.<br>
Out of gratitude.<br>
Out of envy.<br>
Or maybe it just didn’t want to be upstaged by a <strong>high-performing pelvic floor</strong>.<sup>[6]</sup>
</p>
<h3 style=”color:#1e90ff;”>❄️ Canadian Bonus</h3>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
As a proud Canadian, I can report that <strong>within 48 hours of the surgery</strong>, I was able to stand outside in winter and <strong>write my full name in a snowbank at ten yards</strong> — <em>in cursive</em>. 🇨🇦
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
And not just <em>legible cursive</em>, but <strong>with such velocity and control</strong> that if I hadn’t been aiming carefully, I might have accidentally tagged a passing moose. 🫎
</p>
<h3 style=”color:#006400;”>✨ Final Thought</h3>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Some men say their surgeries saved their lives.<br>
Mine did that too — and <strong>also made me believe in miracles</strong>.<br><br>
The kind of miracles where a man pees like a 20-year-old and his sternum quietly reshapes itself out of sheer respect.
</p>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
I’m not saying my prostate operation healed my sternum.<br>
I’m just saying… since the surgery:
</p>
<ul style=”font-size:18px;”>
<li>I sleep better 😴</li>
<li>I feel younger 💪</li>
<li>And my <strong>entire torso is suddenly on the same page</strong> 📖</li>
</ul>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>
Coincidence?<br>
Maybe.<br><br>
But I’ll take it.
</p>
<h3 style=”color:#8b0000;”>🚨 Coming Soon:</h3>
<h4 style=”color:#4682b4;”>“Can a Colonoscopy Improve Your Vision?” 👁️</h4>
<h3 style=”color:#daa520;”>🧰 Bonus Options</h3>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>Would you like this piece delivered as:</p>
<ul style=”font-size:18px;”>
<li>📝 <strong>PDF for printing</strong></li>
<li>🎙️ <strong>Audio narration (with echo effects!)</strong></li>
<li>📬 <strong>Substack-ready column</strong></li>
<li>❄️ <strong>Cartoon: You snow-tagging your name at 10 yards</strong></li>
</ul>
<p style=”font-size:18px;”>Just say the word and I’ll prep it for you.</p>
<h3 style=”color:#2f4f4f;”>📚 Footnotes</h3>
<ol style=”font-size:16px;”>
<li>Lazarus was famously resurrected — but he never bragged about his urinary flow. I do.</li>
<li>Grout can be surprisingly judgmental when you see it up close every night.</li>
<li>It was a doorknob, a cabinet edge, or maybe just ego. Hard to tell at 83.</li>
<li>This may not be how biology works, but it’s how teamwork should.</li>
<li>Most scientists didn’t return my calls. I assume they’re still reviewing the data.</li>
<li>In Pilates, they call it “core engagement.” I call it the Fountain of Youth, lower-back edition.</li>
</ol>