The saga continues
December 11th 2008 03:43
As you might have expected it would.
By yesterday afternoon, instead of all the urine draining out the catheter, some of it insisted on coming out normally. The problem was that it would happen quite suddenly, as though I’d left going to the loo for too long and the matter became urgent.
Wetting pants and floors ain’t fun. It might be par for the course when you’re ninety, but I’m a bit younger than that.
Anyway, I rang the nurse at our health centre and she suggested the catheter might not be fitting correctly, or some other possibilities, and in the end I went over there to get her to check it out. It was lacking a bit of the fluid that keeps the balloon up inside the bladder, but otherwise was pretty much a go.
The urgent needs to go to the loo didn’t improve, though at least they weren’t happening as fast in the evening as they seemed to be in the afternoon. I suspect panic starts to set in at various points, which won’t help the issue.
My wife and I debated going back to A & E, but in the end decided to try a night’s sleep, and the general relaxation that brings. I woke up this morning thinking it would be better to go back to the Urology people rather than the Emergency Department, so I rang them. The Secretary couldn’t find much info on me (surprise!) but said she’d contact the Registrar as soon as she could and see what he said.
Apparently he said to go to my doctor, have the catheter removed, see if I could pee properly, if not stick it back in again! I rang my wife (she’s the office manager/receptionist at the Centre, you might remember) and she was very surprised. The GPs don’t do catheters at all, she said. They can take them out, which is easy enough, but certainly don’t put them in.
At that point one of the doctors there recommended giving me some tablets that ease the spasm/urgency thing, so that’s what I’ve now got. Just to add to the increasing list of tablets. But at least since I took the first one, things have settled, and I’ve actually managed to walk around the house and garden without holding myself together.
But the day was not over.
Another woman from Urology rang this afternoon to say she’d got my message a few minutes ago that I wanted someone to call me. I hadn’t rung them a few minutes before, and neither had my wife. Bit of a mystery. I can only conclude that they’d finally got round to answering my original message that I left on their voicemail this morning.
Anyway, I explained the situation again, and asked whether it was likely I’d be having an appointment with a Urologist any time soon. She wasn’t sure as there was nothing listed yet, and I asked how long I’d need to have the catheter in.
‘Six weeks is the norm,’ she says.
‘Six weeks?’
‘The body usually needs six weeks to get back to normal and relax.’
We discussed this a bit, and the fact that with the Christmas holidays coming up there won’t be anyone much around in the department anyway (!). Finally, feeling rather low, I rang off. My hope now is that since the right hand doesn’t seem to know what the left hand is doing at the hospital, including Urology, that someone will ring up tomorrow or Monday and say I’ve got an appointment to go in and see them. You'd think they'd have some security system to stop people falling between the two hands, but if they have, it ain't working!
Photo courtesy of Bedtime Champ, on Flickr.com
By yesterday afternoon, instead of all the urine draining out the catheter, some of it insisted on coming out normally. The problem was that it would happen quite suddenly, as though I’d left going to the loo for too long and the matter became urgent.
The old man I'm not
Anyway, I rang the nurse at our health centre and she suggested the catheter might not be fitting correctly, or some other possibilities, and in the end I went over there to get her to check it out. It was lacking a bit of the fluid that keeps the balloon up inside the bladder, but otherwise was pretty much a go.
The urgent needs to go to the loo didn’t improve, though at least they weren’t happening as fast in the evening as they seemed to be in the afternoon. I suspect panic starts to set in at various points, which won’t help the issue.
My wife and I debated going back to A & E, but in the end decided to try a night’s sleep, and the general relaxation that brings. I woke up this morning thinking it would be better to go back to the Urology people rather than the Emergency Department, so I rang them. The Secretary couldn’t find much info on me (surprise!) but said she’d contact the Registrar as soon as she could and see what he said.
Apparently he said to go to my doctor, have the catheter removed, see if I could pee properly, if not stick it back in again! I rang my wife (she’s the office manager/receptionist at the Centre, you might remember) and she was very surprised. The GPs don’t do catheters at all, she said. They can take them out, which is easy enough, but certainly don’t put them in.
At that point one of the doctors there recommended giving me some tablets that ease the spasm/urgency thing, so that’s what I’ve now got. Just to add to the increasing list of tablets. But at least since I took the first one, things have settled, and I’ve actually managed to walk around the house and garden without holding myself together.
But the day was not over.
Another woman from Urology rang this afternoon to say she’d got my message a few minutes ago that I wanted someone to call me. I hadn’t rung them a few minutes before, and neither had my wife. Bit of a mystery. I can only conclude that they’d finally got round to answering my original message that I left on their voicemail this morning.
Anyway, I explained the situation again, and asked whether it was likely I’d be having an appointment with a Urologist any time soon. She wasn’t sure as there was nothing listed yet, and I asked how long I’d need to have the catheter in.
‘Six weeks is the norm,’ she says.
‘Six weeks?’
‘The body usually needs six weeks to get back to normal and relax.’
We discussed this a bit, and the fact that with the Christmas holidays coming up there won’t be anyone much around in the department anyway (!). Finally, feeling rather low, I rang off. My hope now is that since the right hand doesn’t seem to know what the left hand is doing at the hospital, including Urology, that someone will ring up tomorrow or Monday and say I’ve got an appointment to go in and see them. You'd think they'd have some security system to stop people falling between the two hands, but if they have, it ain't working!
Photo courtesy of Bedtime Champ, on Flickr.com
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