One is not intimately acquainted with one's penis until one has been catheterized. And that's just the beginning as, suddenly, a whole host of people (strangers and family) are exposed to that which makes us men and that which has, until now, been a relatively private possession.
Humility has no place in the hospital room. New aides and nurses rotate into your life with amazing speed and each wants to see the action. Then, they want to assist the person who will be assisting you at home in the care and feeding of what is quickly becoming a shrinking asset.
My job...sit and watch as the parade continues, knowing it's all to avoid future problems and infection. Then, everything changes.
A new nurse enters my room on Thursday (Thanksgiving and, hopefully, the day I get to go home) and I know what's coming...so I prepare to bare (bear?). OH MY GOD! LOOK AT THIS!! I throw back the sheet and raise my gown before the newcomer and ask, "Is this normal?" as I stare down at something the color of an eggplant with an appearance not unlike a partially deflated Goodyear blimp. Truly disturbing, I cannot avert my eyes...and my pulse has gone through the roof.
New nurse casually looks and merely smiles, "Yes," she begins, "I've seen all kinds of things. They get swollen, bruised, scrotums become bruised, sometimes the entire area of the groan becomes purple up to the navel." Then she yawns, pulls my gown down, and heads for her computer.
Soon, she and Lucia are cleaning the Frankenpenis (FP) as if nothing was wrong...but this is all wrong...very wrong.
Within several days, FP begins to calm down and is back to as normal as possible for something with a garden hose coming out of my body.
One actually becomes accustomed to the catheter, the required maintenance, and the need to drag the bag everywhere 24/7. And then, after eight or nine days, you find yourself on the way to lose the tube for good.
Now, back to the narrative.
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