Tag Archives: water

Things Get Worse Before they get Better

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I apologise if I sometimes become guarded in my medical descriptions, but I’m trying to walk the line between humour, good taste and the provision of too much information. For the purposes of this post I will merely tell you that the cheery, though thoughtful tone did not endure. It gradually became clear that all was not well and I was close to being in the same state as I was six months ago.  Including the feeling of panic. For several hours I fell into deep depression, then I began to plan what I must do in the morning.

But first, there was one thing I could do for myself before throwing myself on the mercy of the NHS. They had sent me home with a box of catheters and I have experience of rodding out the household drains. These two things, plus a fair helping of desperation, provided me with an answer. To say more would be to cross a boundary that does not need crossing.

However, I sit here a happier and a calmer man. And emptier.

The Lake at Clumber Park

Everything that needs to flow freely is doing so (too freely in fact, as I was up almost hourly during the night), the sun is shining, the birds are singing and I am facing the future with what will probably be revealed to be unrealistic optimism.

I am now going to spend a few moments reflecting on the advantages of catheters and the six hours uninterrupted sleep provided by use of a night bag. It comes to something when you view a time of intrusive plastic pipes as being “the good old days”. I did briefly consider a bit of DIY, as the lure of six hours uninterrupted sleep is hard to resist.

However, Julia has banned me from browsing eBay. She was alerted to my searching activities when I called her across to see a lovely secondhand leather overnight bag. Having seen some of the other results, she has put her foot down and told me I must put up with a lifetime of broken sleep.

More photos of water today.

Reflections

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

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…

 

 

 

 

Time to talk toilets

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We spend a lot of time here talking about toilets. and the correct way to use them. In fact, with three school groups in this week, each divided into two groups, we’ve talked about toilets three times and demonstrated six. They are plastic toilets at the centre, which always make it seem a bit like camping; they are variously known as separator, waterless or composting toilets.

The first two are true, as they do separate liquid from solids and they do not use water. I think that sums it up – it can be difficult to get the point across without dumbing down to nursery level, or making it sound like a Latin lesson. They don’t let me do it as my vocabulary tends to slip…

Composting? Not really. The liquids are piped away and used when we fill a barrel and the solids are removed in biodegradable bags on a regular basis and composted on a separate site. The products are composted but the toilet doesn’t actually do the composting.

The trouble we have is that we are in a village, and a village that isn’t 100% sure that they want us here. Adding to this uncertainty by adding piles of humanure to the landscape would be a step too far. I’m committed to using humanure after reading an eBook about it but I have to keep reminding myself that the author was living in an isolated house in the American woods.

The truth is that the humanure isn’t theonly important part of the process. We live on a small, densely populated island and lack space to store water: we can’t keep using drinking water to dispose of our waste. I can’t find figures for the UK but in USA toilet flushing accounts for 27% of water use. I have no reason to think we would be much different in our water wasting habits, particularly in view of the car washing habits of my neighbours, and when you think what people in Africa go through to get clean water this just seems wrong.