Recognizing the late Dr John Coleman

[robertpagen]

I recently found out that a mainstream urologist who was very caring and considerate when I was at my worst (98-02) has died. I wanted to post a posthumous thank you.

In spite of being one of the premier urologists in New York (patients including a famous bad boy basketball player and the head of a nation of a billion people), Dr John Coleman took an inordinate amount of time talking with me when I was at my nadir. Truth to be told, he did not know what was wrong with me. His contribution was in keeping me from desperately cutting open my bladder neck, as I had asked him to do several times. He said he knew from experience it would not work. He would not prescribe me antibiotics as he said there was no infection. When other doctors would prescribe them he would say that taking more than a single one is a waste.

He knew nothing about the SP but would tell me in vague terms about the old term prostatosis, which was rather reminiscent. He did almost nothing to improve my condition, but he did calm me enough that I was still alive when I finally got wind of chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome in Nov 2002. He explicitly protected me from cowboy urologists who were not as conservative as him.

He was one of those rare doctors who becomes your friend and his passing is sad. If I can comfort someone through trauma in the same way he did to me, it is to him I am thankful.

Each time I parted his office he would smile a hearty Irish(via new jersey) smile and say "Be Well"

Be Well

Robert