Thursday January 24th 2007
Well try number two at having the catheter removed, it's now been 6 more days and 15 days total for the catheter hopefully everything is healed better and no more bladder spasms, never want that feeling again. No wonder I was much more uncomfortable these past 6 days, the new catheter was much larger and less flexable than the previous, in fact the hospital in Madison does not even carry any this big. If the object was to keep me less active, it worked. We joked that the hosptial that reattached the second catheter got even with me for not having the surgery there. Anyway the voiding trial went well and worked as planned. I hung around drinking fluids to insure there would be no further problems. Try number two worked fine and a quick ultrasound showed I emptied well. Still hung around for a third try and started to feel discomfort but turned out to be the need to urinate was causing the discomfort. The urine is still rather bloody and red but did clear a little with each time I went. Well the two hour trip home and two stops to use the bathroom and home I am. I find I need to use the bathroom about every 40 to 45 minutes becasue I begin to fell the discomfort and when urinating I do feel a certain amount of discomfort and I am sure this is due to the blood in the urine and the fact that this is the first real day of trying to get things working again. It's too early to judge my continence situation but if I concentrate really hard when I stand up I can usually hold my urine or just dibble a drop. So far I can get by with one pad for the day as long as I get to the bathroom in those 45 minutes. Overnight I had to get up 5 times and had a little more leakage but not total loss of control and of course much redder from blood from not drinking over night. Things are clearing up as the day goes on but I do have a certain amount of dicomfort each time I urinate. I feel hopeful that as the urine clears and I continue with the kegel exercises each day, my doctor has me doing 20 sets each hour, that I will be fine and will report in a few days after I have time to continue to heal and get stronger. As someone said on the board, this is a journey and once you clear one hurdle you encounter a new one but with each and everyday a hurdle is cleared. Aside from this my next big hurdle is my first post op PSA test scheduled for March 12th.
norskie