ADULTS ONLY: The Full Story
Jan. 1st, 2007 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cinema_babeI realize that not everyone is going to want to details of what happened to me yesterday so I'm puttin' it behind an LJ-Cut. Read or skip at your pleasure
The good news is that by 9pm last night, I could actually laugh about this. Heh.
A bit of background. A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with a common type of uterine cancer. The treatment was a radical hysterectomy and an intense course of radiation lasting about 3 months. The radiation, left me with some scar tissue in my bladder and intestine.
No big deal; it usually burns a little when I pee and my bladder will occasionally spasm. I have a touch Irritable Bowel Syndrome if I eat the wrong thing. All of these are generally very minor and I have medication that I take which mostly keeps the discomfort at bay.
I woke up yesterday around 10:00am and my morning pee was painful and slow. Afterward, I still felt like I had to pee. I took my medicine. 11:00 I'm back in the bathroom, trying to pee and now it feels like everything from my navel down to my privates is cramping. Not good. I thought I'd take a warm shower to see if that helped but then I was hit with another wave of spasms and my bladder was aching.
Okay, now I'm nervous.
Into my little blue car and off to the emergency room of the nearest hospital which is only 5 minutes from my house. By the time I get there I have to pee so bad I park *very * illegally and run into the ambulance entrance.
First the sent me off to the jane to try to get me to pee in a cup. I've got the feeling to pee but nuthin's coming out. Into a little room I go, on with the gown and now I'm lying on my back as they try to shove a catheter inside me. (As the nurses were beginning, I asked them if they weren't supposed to give me a valium or something to calm me down. They just looked at me as if I had grown an extra eye or something and said, "No." Uh-Oh)
So the standard size catheter isn't fitting. I'm talking to my sister telling her that I'm at the hospital and they can't quite believe I'm on the phone. I hear a lot of nervous clucking by the (now 4) nurses at the foot of the bed trying to catheterize me. They get a smaller catheter. I suggest they use an infant catheter to which they reply, "we are and it's not going in."
Damn.
10 minutes of tweeky, ripping pain later, it's in and bloody urine is slowly filling the bag attached to the side of the bed. The drew some blood and took a urine sample from the bag and sent them both off to the lab. The assumption is that I likely had a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).
Nope. It seems that my urethra decided to have a gigantic muscle spasm and essentially locked my bladder shut. Yea me.
So what's the end result?
I have to walk around with the catheter in me until Tuesday because there's a chance that things will spasm shut *again*. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. The catheter is attached to a bag that I have to empty every few hours. The funny thing is that I have to stand up to do it, I even have to shake the little tube so I don't drip pee. I laugh like an idiot every time I go to the bathroom.
So no champagne for me last night but I gave myself a new nickname: "Pee Bag". So wrong but so funny.
If I didn't laugh about this kind of stuff, I'd probably be a whole lot less fun to hang around with.
Pee Bag with ya' signing off!
The good news is that by 9pm last night, I could actually laugh about this. Heh.
A bit of background. A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with a common type of uterine cancer. The treatment was a radical hysterectomy and an intense course of radiation lasting about 3 months. The radiation, left me with some scar tissue in my bladder and intestine.
No big deal; it usually burns a little when I pee and my bladder will occasionally spasm. I have a touch Irritable Bowel Syndrome if I eat the wrong thing. All of these are generally very minor and I have medication that I take which mostly keeps the discomfort at bay.
I woke up yesterday around 10:00am and my morning pee was painful and slow. Afterward, I still felt like I had to pee. I took my medicine. 11:00 I'm back in the bathroom, trying to pee and now it feels like everything from my navel down to my privates is cramping. Not good. I thought I'd take a warm shower to see if that helped but then I was hit with another wave of spasms and my bladder was aching.
Okay, now I'm nervous.
Into my little blue car and off to the emergency room of the nearest hospital which is only 5 minutes from my house. By the time I get there I have to pee so bad I park *very * illegally and run into the ambulance entrance.
First the sent me off to the jane to try to get me to pee in a cup. I've got the feeling to pee but nuthin's coming out. Into a little room I go, on with the gown and now I'm lying on my back as they try to shove a catheter inside me. (As the nurses were beginning, I asked them if they weren't supposed to give me a valium or something to calm me down. They just looked at me as if I had grown an extra eye or something and said, "No." Uh-Oh)
So the standard size catheter isn't fitting. I'm talking to my sister telling her that I'm at the hospital and they can't quite believe I'm on the phone. I hear a lot of nervous clucking by the (now 4) nurses at the foot of the bed trying to catheterize me. They get a smaller catheter. I suggest they use an infant catheter to which they reply, "we are and it's not going in."
Damn.
10 minutes of tweeky, ripping pain later, it's in and bloody urine is slowly filling the bag attached to the side of the bed. The drew some blood and took a urine sample from the bag and sent them both off to the lab. The assumption is that I likely had a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).
Nope. It seems that my urethra decided to have a gigantic muscle spasm and essentially locked my bladder shut. Yea me.
So what's the end result?
I have to walk around with the catheter in me until Tuesday because there's a chance that things will spasm shut *again*. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. The catheter is attached to a bag that I have to empty every few hours. The funny thing is that I have to stand up to do it, I even have to shake the little tube so I don't drip pee. I laugh like an idiot every time I go to the bathroom.
So no champagne for me last night but I gave myself a new nickname: "Pee Bag". So wrong but so funny.
If I didn't laugh about this kind of stuff, I'd probably be a whole lot less fun to hang around with.
Pee Bag with ya' signing off!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 08:29 pm (UTC)sorry if that upset you...just trying to find a positive.
glad you're ok, and sorry your news years was spent getting a pee bag.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 11:17 pm (UTC)Actually NYE was pretty nice but I'll write about that later.
And I don't have a booze hangover, however, I was on some stiff painkillers last night (another good reason not to drink.)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-02 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-02 04:41 am (UTC)Only imagine him with the Foley catheter sloshing around. Geez.
So sorry you got this new cross to bear, and very sorryyou went through all that apin. Yikes!!!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 12:13 am (UTC);-)