<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>

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jaron

Jaron Summers wrote dozens of primetime television and radio programs, including those for HBO, CBS, ACCESS TV and CBC. He conceived the TV and Film Institute of Canada. Funded by the University of Alberta and ITV, Jaron ran the Institute for 12 years, donating his services for a decade.

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