On Dec 10, I wrote in this newsgroup of two 72 yr old bph suffers.  One
is my brother (with a 103 gm gland) who lives on the east coast and the
other is a friend (with a 40 gm gland) who went to see my PVP URO here
on the west coast and was found to have a ballflap involvement of the
median lobe into his bladder.

My brother opted to go for an open prostatectomy since he was not seen
as a candidate for TUMT due to metal mesh repair of an inguinal hernia
many years ago and his gland was too large for the traditional TURP.  He
stated he had complete confidence in his URO and chose not to seek
additional help from a doc working PVP on large prostates (like Dr Te).
 He had his surgery on Thurs, Feb 9.  He was in surgery 2.5 hrs (10 -
12:30 pm), in recovery until 4 pm,  and has had constant pain from
bladder spasms and clots in his catheter.  Although he had banked a pint
of blood before the surgery, he has not needed the blood so far. They
put in an epidural for pain relief prior to the surgery but decided two
days later with his symptoms it was not working.  It was removed and he
has been put on  some kind of pain pump. His catheter has become clogged
 multiple times necessitating cath irrigation which he reports as
extremely painful every time it is done. He has had no sleep in two
nights and has been miserable most of the time.  Likely he will be in
the hospital until Wed Feb 15.  He is still in a great deal of pain and
is not a very happy camper.  As he told me on the phone, "I did't think
it would be this bad."

My 72 yr old friend had his PVP at 2 pm on Wed Feb 8.  He was sent home
by 6pm without a catheter.  He went into retention and had to go to the
local ER to have a foley installed.  He has had a lot of bleeding but
little pain.  He was having some clots and returned to have them put in
a larger size cath.  He has taken few pain meds, take the antiobiotics
and antispasm meds.  He says that he is doing well now that the
retention issue has been solved with the catheter.  Although the
recovery can not be described as a walk in the park, he feels good
overall and thinks he will have a good outcome.

We all make the very best decisions based on the knowledge that we have
at hand.  Having been through a PVP 50 weeks ago, I can affirm that my
decision for a PVP was the right one for me.  In my case earlier
intervention was preferrable to complications of putting it off too long
which my brother now believes.