The Thing is gone

This is just a quick update to let you know that the crisis is not only past, but that I am actually feeling better and more positive than I was a week ago before the crisis. Thanks to those of you who expressed your concern and support. It was and is greatly appreciated.

The Thing is back

I am not at all pleased to tell you that the Thing is back. The "Thing". The other c-word. Not the cancer - relax and thank Goodness. The Thing; the CATHETER !! AARGH!

I had been doing extremely well with the incontinence story. Too well as it happens. Over the last few days I had been experiencing increasing difficulty voiding - that means peeing for you non-medical types. This came to a head, you could say, yesterday and I went off to the emergency room. I will spare you the details, but the short of it was that the hospital called in the surgeon and I have come back home condemned to wearing the Thing for thirty-six hours. After that we'll just have to see how it goes.

The Thing is gone - Good riddance to the catheter

If you hang one little boy for stealing a sheep then other little boys will not steal sheep.

Once you have committed murder it becomes quite easy to steal or tell a lie.

(I came across both of those quotes many decades ago.  The first, I thought, was quoted by Winston Churchill in his autobiographical book, "My Early Life" and was a threat uttered to the young Churchill by one of the older boys or even a master, but I cannot find the quote in an Internet search. I cannot remember the author of the second quote and, again, I cannot find the quote on-line.)

On Thursday of this week past, The Catheter,  the "Thing" with which I had become obsessed as front and centre of my life, my constant and inseparable and insufferable companion, was removed. A snip of the scissors to deflate the balloon in my bladder, a few tugs of pain - a little pressure the doctor described it as before each tug - and it was out, gone, consigned to a bin next to the bed. Night and day; chalk and cheese; just like that - tug, tug, tug, plop. What sweet, perfect bliss to pee in my pants instead of through a tube and into a bag that I had been carrying around, day and night, 24-7, for 15 days exactly. Other than when lying flat on my back I'd had an almost constant, somewhat painful, sensation of having a full bladder that urgently needed to be emptied. Walking and standing were difficult, but sitting was the worst. I was so  convinced that the darn thing must be at least partially blocked that I persuaded the home nurse, bless her, to irrigate (read back-wash) the catheter on one of her visits - to no avail. "At least we know that is not the problem," she said, putting a positive spin on it.

My heart goes out to all those poor souls for whom this is a life sentence - people in hospices and elderly patients who have no hope that this thing will ever be removed, never ever.

So, now I pee my pants. Without the catheter experience to soften me up beforehand that might have been quite traumatic bearing in mind the carrot-stick socialising process to enforce conformity (the ostracism after peeing your pants as a child was like a public hanging) but now It's quite easy, really; as easy as lying or stealing after committing murder - the more so thanks to my Depends MEN GUARDS! I can do it and nobody knows my dirty secret as I walk down the street or stand up in church to sing the hymn.

This takes me back to my Grade 2 year in school. We called it Class 2 in Natal back then. The boys' toilets were being repaired so we all had to use the girls' toilets. One little boy asked to "be excused." He was allowed to go to the toilet. I thought it would be a good idea to see the girls toilets so I also asked if I could be excused. The teacher said, "You don't really need to go. You just want to see the girls toilets." Well, now. I was crushed and felt put down. How did she know whether I really needed to go or not? True, I did not need to go, but I could go, and I would show her that she was wrong. I peed my pants at my desk in the front row of the classroom. I still remember the warmth and the wet and the smell and the thrill and then the embarrassment when the little girl at the next desk told the teacher that I had wet my pants and it was all over the floor under my desk and was still dripping down. Well, she couldn't say anymore that I had not needed to go, could she. I still relish the look of exasperation on her face. I never really got into trouble for that. She wrote a letter informing my parents what had happened. They scolded my mildly but I think they all gave me the benefit of the doubt.