Wednesday, November 30, 2011, will always be remembered as CFD for me, a day I had looked forward to since before the surgery.
Getting dressed, I looked forward to seeing the doctor once again and receiving recovery care instructions.
The drive was uneventful and could not have been at a better time to avoid all rush hour traffic. Arriving at Riverside, we found a parking place and I had to control my urge to run toward the doctor's office complex.
Note: for this special occasion I chose a simple black bag to conceal the cath
bag...I know, I know...black is for evening wear, so sue me.
Arriving at the office I was told the doctor's nurse would be taking care of me; oh joy, yet another woman I've never met getting physical with my wiener (which sounds like a good thing...it isn't). Oh well, by now I have lost all humility.
Kim comes into the treatment room and tells me to take off my pants and underwear and cover up with the sheet...then, she's gone. I do as instructed and sit on the table waiting eagerly to lose the tube.
When she returns, the first thing Kim does is remove the staples (which had concerned me but proved to be without discomfort) and cover the incisions with small pieces of tape she tells me will fall off in 7 to 10 days. Then, she says, "Lay back." Here it comes.
Here's the deal, the catheter is held in place by a balloon in the bladder. To begin the removal, Kim took a large syringe and deflated the balloon...at one point there was a sound (I think) and a definite sensation of something happening inside. Kim said, "Did you feel that?" Ummmm...yes. "That's the balloon. Now I'm going to fill your bladder with water." and she began to inject syringe after syringe of water into the catheter. Then she began to pull.
Holy Crap! I thought the catheter was around seven inches in length...WRONG! She pulled...and pulled...and pulled. My guess is about twenty inches, felt like forty. No pain in the process, not even the slight burning sensation Kim had suggested I might experience. I have no idea where all that tubing was, but I'm surprised it didn't interfere with my swallowing!
Next I was handed a beaker to collect the water that had been injected...which appeared to be mixed with an equal amount of blood. I was a bit concerned by the amount of blood, but Kim told me that was absolutely typical. Then she told me to get dressed while she got my parting gifts.
For anyone reading this in anticipation of surgery let me emphasize I experienced no discomfort throughout this process...my experience may not be typical, but my guess is most will be similar; there is nothing to fear.
When Kim returned, she had lengthy written instructions (time to begin those Kegel exercises) as well as prescriptions including one for 90 Viagra tablets (half a tab daily for six months) and one for a vacuum system; both to assist in the recovery of sexual function.
Then, thirty minutes after we arrived, we were walking out the door toward the car "catheter free!"
Now the recovery begins in earnest.
No comments:
Post a Comment