Hi there,
Seeing that in Porto the public health system worked excellently, we asked the family doctor to make an appointment with the specialist for Diego to have the vasectomy.
It took a couple of months and we went for the first consultation which was basically to make sure that Diego wanted to do a sterilization process that was not reversible.
It struck me that the doctor’s arguments were sexist.
Not only the typical “What if you regret it? But the argument that a man can procreate until he is almost 70 years old and that, if he changed his girlfriend and opinion, there was no turning back.
If Diego changes his mind and girlfriend at the age of 50 or 70, it is assumed that the girlfriend is going to be about the same age, and he is not going to look for a woman in her 20s or 30s to be able to have a child.
Besides, nobody thinks about the option of adopting, with the number of children that need a family.
In short, the usual sexism in medicine.
Diego assured the doctor over and over again that he did not want to have children and that he was not going to change his mind.
We were given an appointment the following week since the application, as the request must go through an evaluation to see if it is approved or not. As it had been approved, Diego simply had to sign the authorization.
The urologist told us that now we had to wait for a call to set the date and since it was not urgent, it could take 3 months.
These waiting times are nothing compared to Spain.
Something important is that, as it is such a simple procedure that is done under local anesthesia, no preoperative examination is necessary.
We were waiting for Diego to be called and the 3 months passed, which was supposed to be the maximum time limit.
Then we received a letter to go to the hospital again. They told us that this appointment was to confirm that he really wanted to have the vasectomy because they had tried to contact us without success.
At that time the contact number was mine and I blocked calls from private numbers, maybe that was the problem.
The absurd thing is that they had not sent a letter. They explained that since they called when a vacancy arose and the deadline was very short, the letter would not arrive in time.
We gave Diego’s new phone number and waited.
What impressed us positively was the hospital’s interest in knowing if Diego still wanted to have the vasectomy. In Spain, if they can’t reach you with a one phone call, they forget about you.
The operation was scheduled for November 7, 2024.
Initially we had been told that since it was something so simple, it could be done in any medical center. But now it turned out that it would be done at the São João Hospital itself.
We arrived at 8 AM and it was at 11:30AM when he was transferred to the operating room.
I waited because since it was such a simple thing, he would be back in an hour at the most.
At 2 PM he was back in the post-op room.
I went home for lunch, and I would be back in the afternoon.
We had said that Diego was a vegan and the nurse had noted it in the file.
At 4 pm Diego told me that they had brought him a cookie and tea, and the cookie had milk in it. He asked the nurses, and it turned out that there was nothing for a vegan to eat.
So, I had to set about preparing food so that Diego would have something to eat that day and the next morning since we had been told he would be spending the night in the hospital.
I went in the afternoon and after Diego had eaten what I had brought him, they served dinner which consisted of fish and mashed potatoes, so logically Diego could not eat any of it.
The next morning Diego had breakfast what I had left for him the previous afternoon and then they served the hospital breakfast which consisted of a piece of bread with jam and tea.
The postoperative period was not bad since Diego was practically as if nothing had happened.
They explained to him that he had to go to the medical center the following Monday to have the wounds cleaned and that he had to ask the family doctor for a spermogram to take to the follow-up appointment on March 25.
At the medical center he was told that he was fine since he did not even have inflammation and that he should simply maintain good hygiene of the area.
The wounds were two very small punctures, one on each testicle.
Five days after the operation, Diego returned to sports without any problem.
Here is a summary of what you need to know about vasectomy:
- It is a very simple operation without any risk, just the opposite of the sterilization of a woman.
- The postoperative period is very calm, and they do not even send pain medication, because the patient has no pain or discomfort of any kind.
- Depending on the time you are operated on, you may have to spend a night in the hospital to monitor the effects of the anaesthesia. Anyway, I know that there are places where they perform the vasectomy only with local anesthesia and the patient goes home almost immediately.
- Three to four months after surgery, you must have a spermogram to check that there are no sperm in your semen.
- You can only resume unprotected contraceptive intercourse when the urologist confirms that the sterilization has been effective.
- Vasectomy is a “non-reversible” procedure. There is a procedure to attempt to reverse it, but the success rate of this operation is very low.
- Vasectomy is covered by the public health system and is a right.