Tag Archives: urology

All is Right with the World

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I’m feeling perkier today. Well, mostly. It’s tailing off a bit now but I have a pot of soup on the go  (tomato, onion, celery, mixed herbs and chilli for those who are curious) so I will eat well fo9r tomorrow’s lunch. I just realised I forgot the garlic. Ah well!

Julia has just returned with three night bags. It has been a complicated story.

After leaving hospital without enough bags, as mentioned in  previous post, I summoned up the energy to find some more.

The Scallop at Aldeburgh

First I rang the District Nurses. As a service they have been trimmed back over the years, but I know they have spare bags and I know they travel in the area so they seemed the logical place to start. I didn’t get the full query out of my mouth before their receptionist gave me a new number to call and cut me off. ten out of ten fro efficiently avoiding work. Nought out of ten for everything else.

The new number was the Continence Service. I know from bitter experience that they are useless, and they failed again. After holding me in the queue at position number three the system told me they couldn’t process my call and cut me off. It then refused to connect me on my next two attempts. Annoying, but nice to have my previous prejudices confirmed. They really don’t do customer service at the Continence Service. ten out of ten for getting up my nose. Zero for Customer Service.

Martello Tower Aldeburgh

Next I rang the Urology Centre and ran into a network of menus giving me different numbers to press. I eventually got through to the PAs of the consultants. Guess what, the one I needed had an automated message telling me there was nobody there to take my call. I’ve probably mentioned before that although I love the urology Centre for many things, efficient admin isn’t one of them.

Next attempt – the Urology ward at the hospital. It took quite a while to connect, but to be fair they are actually doing a job rather than sitting by a phone. The Nurse who answered suggested ringing the District Nurses . . .

When I explained I already had done, she suggested the Continence Service.

Honestly, I’m not making this up.

I explained I had done, and what the result had been.

So she arranged to put some bags into a parcel for me and asked if i was able to travel. I wasn’t, but fortunately Julia was available to solve that problem.

Ten out of ten for the Urology Ward, and ten out of ten for Julia.

 

At Aldeburgh, Suffolk

 

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

Pictures of Water – a Metaphor

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Mill on Rufford Lake

The daytime arrangements for catheters can be slightly tricky, particularly for those of us who are a little taller and a little fatter than others. This is aggravated by the inadequacy of the equipment that is provided. How many ways can you think of fitting a Velcro strap through two slots in a bag? Well, you can fit is so the rubberised side that grips your leg is facing the wrong way. You can fix it so that the two Velcro surfaces don’t match. You can fit it so that the whole thing pings back and it all falls off. And finally you can do it so that the bag is facing the wrong way. I suspect that there are others but that was all I had time for this morning after I inadvertently managed to pull the strap off whilst struggling to fit it.

This is all aggravated by the fact that the tube from catheter to bag is not long enough, despite being labelled “Long” and the straps I am using are actually made by fixing two straps together. Also, last time I had a catheter you could get a clip that stuck to your leg and held the tube in place as it made its way from bladder to bag. It was quite useful in ensuring a good fit, but like all useful bits and pieces it seems to have been discontinued.

Dead tree in Clumber Park

Richard Mabey wrote about a stay in male urology. Clare Pooley put me onto it after my previous exploits in hospital. He  put it all in quite spiritual terms and equated the water of the planet to the water in his body. He’s an award winning author. I’m not. I have, as usual, emerged from my brush with the medical establishment with a list of complaints and several anecdotes that are unsuitable for publication.

The good news is that I had six hours uninterrupted sleep. This due to the “night bag” which is bigger than the “day” or “leg” bag, and fills steadily overnight. This means that you don’t have to get up in the night. I had six and a half hours uninterrupted sleep. It was good.

Cormorants at Clumber

However, there are eight nights until I return to hospital and they have only provided me with six single-use bags. This is typical of the lack of organisation in the NHS and is very annoying. The night bag has a long tube on it and you attach it to the tap on the leg bag before going to sleep. The pipe is long enough for you to place it on the floor by the side of the bed. In hospital they have them on stands, but they can actually make life more complicated. I once tied myself up in the tubing and woke in a dream about being caught in a net.

The house – Arnot Hill Park

There Will Be Blood (Again)

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The internet outage on Sunday seems to hve reset my computer and I am now conducting searches with Bing. This is rather like trying to sew in boxing gloves, as whatever you want to do is marred by the unsuitable and clumsy equipment. I’m not happy, but despite several attempts I have been unable to restore Google as my default browser. I follow the instructions to a certain point then . . .

I seem to be a few buttons short of a full set. Yes, you can take this as a comment on my computer and may lack of computer skills if you like. I suspect another chapter in the history of my feud with Microsoft.

Yesterday was notable in that it was a day when I exposed my genitalia to a man to whom I had not been formally introduced. He was a doctor and it was by appointment so I suppose it was fair enough, though it never seems quite right as an activity unless accompanied by beer and rugby songs.

Photo by ThisIsEngineering on Pexels.com

Today I had a blood test. Two holes, three bottles. The first hole produced a few drops in the tube, but when the nurse took the needle out it bled all over her hand and my arm, so there was plenty there, it was just refusing to cooperate.  I think even my veins hate me. They have already rung me with the woeful results. The ineptitude of the Coagulation team means that once again I am reduced to weekly blood tests because they can’t get it right.

I am doing everything they ask in an attempt to escape from their grip, but it’s not working. It’s very difficult to have confidence in a department that insists on giving me the same dose and being surprised when it doesn’t alter the required result. I’m currently blow the range, as I was last week, and they are giving me the same dose as last week. If it didn’t produce a change last week, why will it produce one this week. I’m giving it a couple of weeks and then, when I retire and have the time to spare, will start taking action.

I’m currently holding back on my complaint about Urology, because they are being efficient at the moment, and because they have the power to conduct a prostate exam if I wind them up too much. The worst the Coagulation team cam do ts stick a needle in me, and they are doing that anyway.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Sleeping . . .

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My life, at the moment, is like a science fiction film – I keep waking to find that significant amounts of time have disappeared.

It happened a few days ago when suddenly realised I hadn’t posted for several days. Then it happened again when another couple of days went missing. I know I was around as I wrote three paragraphs for a new post. Unfortunately, due to the nature of time, they aren’t relevant now as the “yesterday” they refer to is now “the day before yesterday” and to go through it all amending timings and using the correct tenses for things is more than I can enthuse myself to do. Fortunately, with it being in my normal rambling style, it’s no great loss to literature.

However, compared to this afternoon, this is nothing. This afternoon, having arrived home around 1.30 and sat down with a book to read about eels and ponder the progress of my afternoon, I regained consciousness three and  a half hours later to the sound of Julia’s key in the lock.

My afternoon, which had been meant to include a light lunch,  a little cookery, two phone calls and some note taking for an article I’m thinking of writing, turned out to be a blank interlude. I hadn’t even felt tired, so I’m not clear how I switched off so completely. I’m hoping it is to do with my urological problem, and the numerous associated nocturnal bathroom excursions. If that can be fixed fairly soon it will be a help.

I remember the three months of blissful, undisturbed sleep I had after my last visit to Urology. It came at the cost of tubes and bags (I didn’t even know there were “day bags” and “night bags” until then) but it did involve unbroken sleep so it was worth it. Well, almost unbroken sleep. There were a few nights when the tubes kinked, or I woke up tangled in the tubes, or, once, after a night of unrestrained tea drinking, I woke around 6am to find the bag was full and everything was backing up . . .

If it isn’t to do with this, it may be due to another medical condition and after looking several up (cyberchondria strikes again) I’ve decided that I don’t want any of them.

Photo by FOX on Pexels.com

 

 

 

 

A Fine Line

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Great Tit feeding young

There’s a very fine line between getting arrested and not getting arrested when you speak to a strange woman on the phone and describe your genitalia, and its problems, to her. That fine line depends on whether she is a doctor or not. And even then you would be wise to ring during working hours. At 3am, for instance, it is less acceptable.

Even then I came off the phone wondering if I should have been quite as informative, as we had never been properly introduced.

Blue Tit

Yes, I rang the surgery this morning. At 8am I was Number 17 in the queue. It seems they have started opening at 7.30. I’d have tried earlier if I’d known. I was in the queue for 20 minutes and got through to a receptionist, who informed me that there were no more appointments available today. However, she did say, after listening to my story, that she would arrange for a phone appointment later that morning. So I went back to bed. A week of disturbed sleep had left me exhausted. Last night, for instance, I was up more than once an hour as my bladder sprang into action on a regular basis. I say “action” as it’s part of the expression. In truth there was just about enough action to stop me exploding but not enough to empty properly.

The doctor rang at 11ish and proved to be a very good doctor. She listened to the full story and quickly grasped the essentials (no that wasn’t meant to be a double entendre but I’ll leave it there as it seems too good to lose). I have another week off work as it is impractical to work in  a shop whilst having dodgy bladder control, so I no longer feel guilty about being absent. I also have a referral to Urology, albeit with a note about ringing them if I haven’t heard from them by 22nd December.

Great Tit at Rufford Abbey

To be fair, two months is pretty good compared to some of the old waiting lists we used to have.

In the 1920s, before the NHS, one of my Uncles was born with learning difficulties. The doctor’s bill for his early care was equivalent of two year’s wages for my grandfather. This, was the Land Fit for Heroes that Lloyd George had promised. Despite this start my uncle grew up to be a man much admired in the local community for his great good humour and work ethic.

Marsh Tit at Rufford Abbey

My mother, in the late 1960s, (the Golden Years, if you listen to people going on about the Good Old Days) came close to death as she waited patiently for an operation on  a goitre. It seems it had grown so large that it could have suffocated her in her sleep. This was, apparently her fault, though how she was supposed to know was never explained.

I’m obviously not happy about fifteen hours spent waiting in A&E, but compared to previous generations I’m not doing so bad.

Feeding tits at Budby Flash

It’s birds again today. Birds are calming, though they illustrate another fine line. I typed “tits” into the search box. I once got into serious trouble with Julia about doing that until I showed her the pictures. You would think they would either Americanise it, as with so many things, to chickadee or go back to titmouse, which was what they were called prior to the Great War.

Warning – Danger of Oversharing

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If you’d asked me on Saturday, what I really wanted most in the world it would have been a mix of things. Family, a nice home and happiness would have been the top three. Well, I have family, I will have a nice home after we move (this one needs work, as I may have said and I am mainly happy. That’s not bad.

Ask me Monday and I would have been terser, and much more basic. By that time I would have killed for the ability to empty my bladder.

Yes, I’m back in the grip of urological problems, which regular readers may remember from before.

I won’t give too much information, as there is a very fine line between frankness and over-sharing. One is desirable in autobiographies, the other is a modern curse.  Forgive me if I stray over the line.

Let’s just say that after a difficult day I went to the A&E department at our local hospital at 4am, and when they asked, reported that my problem was that I hadn’t been able to pass urine for eight hours. The NHS, on their website, considers that 4 or 5 hours is a serious problem. At A&E they are much more casual about it. I was seen after an hour then waited around four more before I went to ask what was happening and was told to ask round the corner. I went round the corner and asked, where I was told dismissively that my name was on the list for a scan and that I would probably be able to see a doctor around midnight.

Fortunately, at that point, I found myself able to pass a little urine – it was erratic and we are talking about very small amounts, but it did offer some relief, both physical and mental.

Eventually they got the scan result showing my bladder wasn’t emptying despite my efforts. I had actually told them that seven hours previously. That’s a working day for many people.  It seems that in the NHS it’s a perfectly acceptable time to wait between tests. It’s a long time to retain urine at any time, but on top of the original eight hours it was quite a worry.

Think of a shop. You go in at 9am when they open, tell them you would like a coin, are interviewed an hour later, confirm your desire to buy a coin, and are made to sit round waiting. Eventually, after waiting, you ask again and are told that you have been put on a list to see if you can pas a test to buy a coin, and that you will be able to see a coin salesman when you have been waiting for eight hours . . .

To cut to the chase – blood pressure again, doctor (diagnosis given that seemed to have little to do with the facts of the case I had provided them with) urine test, another scan, another blood pressure test, blood test, doctor again, cannula removed, pills given. And, I think, blood pressure again. (After 20 hours with no sleep, things were getting hazy). I’m glad to say that mine stayed own through the whole experience, as I meditated.

From entry to the system to seeing a doctor, a little before midnight – almost eight hours.

However, from seeing a doctor until release, a little over seven more hours.

Yes, a total of fifteen hours.

I arrived home just as Julia was leaving, ate the breakfast she had left for me and went to sleep for eight hours. She has, as they say in the Bible, a price above rubies. It was only her text at 1am, suggesting that she report the NHS to the Police for kidnapping, that kept me going. The anti-biotics have had little effect and there has been no improvement as I continue to struggle.

This is merely a narrative account of my life, so I will offer no further commentary.

I thought fruit and veg photos would be a calming motif.

 

 

 

 

My Hibernation Plan

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Some days just don’t live up to their early promise. Today was one of them. I started reasonably early, and if staring at a blank screen  had been on my list of activities, I would have nailed it. However, it didn’t, and I have to count it as a failure.

There is a pasta bake in the fridge ready for tomorrow, the washing up is done and the evening meal is about to go into the oven.  It’s pie and roast vegetable. The gravy will be made by pouring boiling water onto gravy granules. It is, like me, simple.

Ironic that the Masterchef final is on to tonight. Watching it obviously does not improve my cookery skills.

I’m fairly sure that hibernating is not as easy as it looks, particularly as I get older.  Waking up every few hours to use the bathroom seems to defeat the whole idea of hibernation. I want to sleep from November to 24th December and go back to sleep around 29th December until April. Based on my last stay in hospital, I may have an idea.

For those of you who don’t remember, that was the visit to hospital where the medical profession shoved a camera into a body orifice not designed to accommodate cameras, checked my bladder and sent me home with a plastic bag of urine attached to my leg for three months. Obviously not the same urine, I had to drain that, including, once, into my shoe after knocking the valve that controlled such things.

However, amusing as I find it in hindsight, it wasn’t fun at the time. The only good bit was that I spent three months sleeping through the night. At bedtime you detach the “day bag” and attach the extension pipe and “night bag”. You throw the bag on the floor, arrange the plastic tubing and go to sleep. Eight hours later you wake up, detach the night bag, dispose of the contents and attach the day bag.

I often dream of those carefree nights of sleep. The only problem is that when you are attached to a catheter you can’t help thinking about your own mortality. And then there’s the first night of non-catheterisation. After 12 weeks of urinating automatically, wherever you are and whatever you are doing (a bit like a mouse) it’s hard to fall asleep without worrying about whether you will wake up at the necessary times, or whether . . .

Perhaps I will stop there.

The top picture is to remind me it will be spring soon.

Back in the Groove…

Well, it looks like I’m not quite back in the groove, as I wrote this last night and then forgot to post it.

Ah well, if it’s a bit confusing try adjusting it by 24 hours.

Looks like it’s five days since I last posted. Sorry about that – I have plenty of things to write about, loads of photos and plenty of typing fingers (even if I don’t actually use nine of them) so there’s no excuse.

It’s a bit like being trapped in a chocolate factory – so much choice I just can’t get to grips with it.

However, I do have a plan. I’m going to start by writing a short paragraph about not writing posts and I’ll see where that takes me. In fact I just did that.

Now for Part II.

The day started, as so often, when Julia’s alarm clock went off early. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but she has a problem with setting alarms. For some reason her alarms always seem to go off ten minutes early, which is why the alarm went off at 4.50am. I’m beginning to suspect she does it deliberately.

Having had a poor night (two trips to the bathroom during the early hours) I muttered my suspicions about her setting of the clock and went back to sleep for another 20 minutes, where I dreamed of urology. I’m going to have to put myself in their hands again I fear, and have mixed feelings on the subject.  Actually, that’s not quite true. I have feelings on the matter but they aren’t particularly mixed.

I dropped her off at 6am and went to pick Number 2 son from work. There were nine pied wagtails in the car park, all seeming to find food. There was also a woman wearing a sheepskin jacket and pyjama trousers, which was strange. It reminded me of a scene out of Dawn Patrol (if I recall correctly) where David Niven goes out on patrol in his pyjamas and returns to the squadron, still wearing them, after being shot down.

Next, off to the launderette. I was the only one in there and took advantage of that by using the big machine and doing the hot wash with pre-wash. It takes over an hour but Julia is always complaining the short wash doesn’t do things properly. She may be right, but the truth is that you normally have to rush it to get a drier.

Today I only just got a drier, as the place suddenly filled with people just as my machine finished. It would have been annoying to have missed out.

Julia had slipped a rainproof top into the washing. It was dirty and had plastic tape on the seams. It is now clean and, after the tumble drier, no longer has plastic tape to worry about. It probably isn’t waterproof now either.  We will no doubt be discussing it further.

While I was waiting I made notes, planned a menu for the week, wrote a shopping list and read a book on Vikings. I bought it for 50p yesterday whilst shopping at Sainsbury’s – there were some good books on the charity table yesterday.

Then I nipped along to the cafe for a bacon and black pudding cob with brown sauce and a nice big mug of tea.

The diet, in case you were wondering, could be going better.

This took me up to 10.30 am. That’s probably enough excitement for one post.

 

All Went Well

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Well, that was easy.

I arrived in plenty of time, sat down, opened my book and was called through before I’d had time to read the first page.

Of course, they didn’t want me, they just wanted to move me to the next waiting area. This was crammed with men of a certain age, mostly with a slightly haunted air. This was due, I found out, to the next instruction.

“We’re going to do a flow test today, so I need to ask you to have five or six glasses of water.”

She pointed to the water fountain and left me to it. The slightly haunted air of my fellow drinkers was now explained. Take a man with a dodgy bladder, fill him with water, and it’s not exactly a recipe for comfort and jollity.

I was able to read plenty more of my book, though I wasn’t exactly able to concentrate as the water worked its way through.

Eventually, as I was beginning to feel a touch urgent, I was called through by the consultant.

All is good.

He turned out, despite his formidable qualifications and reputation, to be a warm and charming man with a sense of humour. This is not, as I have discovered over the years, always true of consultants.

He discharged me, told me to see the GP about the disturbed nights, thanked me for my patience and shook my hand.

I shook back then made off in search of a toilet. I may have avoided the flow test, but I still had six glasses of water to unload…

 

 

 

 

In Just Under an Hour

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In just under an hour I will be in hospital being prodded and questioned.

I’ve run through it all in my head and hope I have enough answers ready to avoid them following up with more pills or tests. I already rattle when I walk too fast and am still having dreams of long corridors from my last three month session of intensive prodding.

Recently, I have started daydreaming about hospital food. I’m wondering if it may be a form of Stockholm Syndrome. I do hope not, because spending more time in hospital would definitely be the wrong treatment…

When I was in hospital twelve years ago the procedure which now takes a day and a half used to take three or four. It was much more restful and they used to take the catheter out before sending you home.

There are advantages to the new industrial system – probably more people seen, and definitely less chance of becoming ill from something you pick up in hospital.

There’s another thing I noticed – when I was in for three days I was glad to get out.When I was in for four days I was resentful at being sent home on Irish Stew day. I’d been looking forward to that stew.

Ah well, time to go.

Wish me luck.