Peeing, Part 6

Let's see, continuous irrigation... ah, yes, that's where they hang a gallon bottle of sterile water on a pole - actually two, so the top one might empty out before they get back but the bottom one probably won't - and run it into the input of a three-way catheter. Then they hang the largest night bag low on the chair or bed, and hook that up to the output (the third valve is the one they use to waterfill the balloon that holds the thing in the bladder). Then they set the drip feed to high, and come back every 45 minutes to dump the night bag and throw on another gallon.

This insured that I'd have people checking on me on a regular basis, and that three shifts of nursing staff would be messing with my privates, especially when the catheter output clogged up with a few stray clots a few times. Very nice ladies, all, and to no avail versus blood and tubing. I found that I could sleep through bag changes but not clog-ups. I started out in a chair, thinking I would sleep there as it was kind of a hospital recliner, but moved to the bed when I realized that it was way adjustable.

A hospital gown trying to cover tubes hanging from one's penis is not the most elegant way to receive visitors, but my wife's friend had given her a ride to Eau Claire Tuesday evening so she (Wendy) could check on me and recover the car for her need the next day, and Susan came up along with Wendy. No, she didn't get to attend to my parts, but it took some careful blanket work to avoid frightening all three of us.

Wednesday morning, I woke up, agreed with the chaplain that a little prayer would be a good thing, and was hauled off to surgery. As they began prepping me, someone from the medical staff told me that, yes, the thing I had been unable to pass was some kind of tissue and yes, it looked like "fish bait." So my thought that it looked like a grub was close enough. After I faded out, the surgeon went in, took a look around, and removed some blood clots and the rest of the loose chunk of prostate, along with a few more stone fragments. It was brief enough: I remember seeing 7:30 before the procedure and 8:45 after. I returned to my room, got a small late breakfast, slept a bit, then they came and removed the catheter. Just before noon I was brave enough to try a whiz on my own, and was more or less successful. I had lunch, and called Wendy's friend Beth's friend Del, who had volunteered to take me home as Wendy was attending a class at the U of Minnesota. He arrived in Eau Claire, and I was allowed to walk out to his vehicle. I was home by about 1:30 p.m.

The rest of Wednesday I snoozed, drank water, and peed. Thursday morning I took Lucy the dog for her walk, and gave a surprise to Beth as we met her at the end of her dog walking. I took Thursday off, it being a day following surgery performed through my penis, and found I was doing reasonably well.

I had booked a four-day weekend to attend Trivia in Appleton, but I had been badly unnerved by the tissue obstruction in my poor penis, and Friday I postponed the decision to go or not. As it turned out, we had a visit from our dear friends Terry and Ed, formerly and still occasionally from Madison but now also from Rhinelander, who were on their way home from a visit to one of their daughters. Then the weekend was miserably cold, and I just plain wimped out. My work holiday party was Sunday night in Eau Claire, and I didn't even go to that. Now, I had been nipping at the wine bottle during the day and driving wasn't wise, and I was on a ten-pound weight limit and the party was a bowling event, so I felt doubly justified on that one.

I feel bad about missing Trivia: my health concerns weren't much of an issue through the weekend. But when you can't pee, and when you've seen blood clots and white fibrous material failing to get through your peeing parts, it can color your attitude for awhile.

During all of this, I had very little actual pain, except for those times I felt a serious need to pee and couldn't; these times were what sent me to get re-catheterized, or to the clinic, or to call the nurses to suction out the catheter. I took Vicodin for a couple days following the first surgery, for less than one day after the second, and not at all after the last one. As I may have mentioned, Vicodin is nasty in its tendency to cause constipation, and the hassle of clearing that, which took a couple days after I stopped it following the first event, influenced my choice.

Then there's the informative nature of pain. I don't like pain, and don't seek it out. I don't get S&M, or people who are into domination. I have long-term pain issues with my knees, and I try to ameliorate that. But at a certain level, pain is a meter. It lets me know how I'm doing, how things are progressing. Am I healing? Can I move the leg, or arm, or shoulder further that I could yesterday? Less far? Is the sore throat responding to the medicine? Do I know where this headache came from (hangover, maybe)? It's a bit like snow, and like sticking a ruler into it to see how much you got before firing up the snowblower. You want to get rid of it, but you want to know about it. I'm going to have to do some exercises to work out a new knee problem; I will probably do the work first, to sense how things are, then take pain relievers to get through the day.

I have had to pay a little more attention to my fluid intake. Since the first surgery, it has been valuable to run fluids through my bladder, to help flush little remnants and reduce clotting. Water is generally the best for this, but anything that makes me pee has been OK. Yes, beer is pretty good at that, and some wine, George Dickel No. 12 Tennessee Sippin' Whisky, or ouzo/raki alternated with water have helped the days go by. Coffee, juice, soda, Simply Limeade - they all serve.