Be warned. The catheter doesn't make for a good story even considering the nice flexible hoses that they use today compared to the bronze artifacts of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks & Romans. Through culpable carelessness I managed to make a bad day worse than it threatened to be.
It started last night, actually. I managed to aggravate something while trying to be diligent about the twice daily catheter hygiene that the nurse had given me strict and detailed instructions about. My poor thing became quite swollen. Thank the Lord for painkillers which enabled me to sleep most of the night. It wasn't as bad this morning but I still felt like I had gone *backward* a few days and was not up to walking around outside as I had done the previous day, really enjoying the glorious weather even with a catheter bag strapped to my calf.
After lunch the serviceman came from Rogers Cable to fix our Internet which has been out of action the last three days. After nearly two hours he worked out that the whole street was out and it won't be fixed until the day after tomorrow. By the time that he left I needed to do a bit of *tending* to myself which involved standing in the bath. As I stepped out of the bath with catheter bag still strapped to one leg I managed to snare the other foot in the tubing while stepping down... As my son, Stephen, pointed out when I told him, I now have a new baseline for 10 on my personal pain scale. Fortunately the worst of the pain was fleeting and the catheter is still draining the bladder with no obvious evidence of bleeding. ...and thank goodness for pain killers.
So, if you are coming up for prostate surgery, be sure to put this high on your list of no-no's to avoid at all costs.
Sent from my BlackBerry
