This is Part 2 of my Pee-No-Evil adventure. It will probably make much more sense to first read Part 1, Touched By An Angel, if you haven’t already.
That’s okay. I’ll just wait here…
When I last left you, I had just experienced for the very first time not only an ultrasound, but also the wondrous joys of a catheter as well.
As such, this seems like the appropriate time to reflect and philosophize on the nature of catheters in general, before moving along with this enrapturing narrative.
You see, it was in that exact moment of sweet relief when I realized that catheters were much like root canals.1Although I wasn’t about to experience my first one until a month and half later, but that’s a story for another time. The common perception is that these are horrible things, when in fact the public view is completely wrong.
What is horrible is if you need a root canal or a catheter. And in turn, if you receive a root canal or a catheter in that moment of desperate need, you will realize that they are the best ----- inventions of the last 5 centuries.
So think twice before you go talking smack on either of these wonderful, wonderful pieces of medical technology. *Dismounts soapbox.*
Getting back to the story: the medical staff actually ended up having to ultrasound and cath me again about 30 minutes later after the initial “life-altering event.”
As it turned out, I was unbelievably full of piss.
Naturally, I wanted some answers as to what had happened to me. But as to what was causing my unusual medical condition, the doctor’s best guess was that I had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. Most likely it had interfered with the nerves that control the bladder,2Maybe this reference holds some clues? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1502389/ he said.
So now every time a dentist or other medical professional asks me the age-old question “Do you have any allergies?” I get to give one of my classic responses that start out, “Well….it’s a funny story, doc…” Unsurprisingly, I have yet to figure out how to get it down to under 2 sentences…
However, my favorite part of the whole episode was when it came time to discharge me in the early afternoon, and the doctor had to discuss the options at hand with me and my mother.
“So, originally we were planning on discharging you around noon. But of course that was before your…complications.”
“Now, we don’t know if you’re in the clear, or if you still may be susceptible to complications later today. This is a pretty serious issue, so we recommend that you stay overnight. But, if you really want to, we will go ahead and let you go home now…”
His voice trailed off as he appeared to be searching for the right phrase.
“Well, if you go home now, we’ll need to send a catheter with you. And if anything happens, we will need your mother to cath you. Are you okay wi–“
Without skipping a beat, Mom pipes up: “Oh, he’ll be staying the night here…”
It’s good to know that we were on the same page at least, and I wouldn’t run the risk of hurting her feelings by saying that no way in hell was I, a grown-ass 24-year-old man, going to let my poor dear mother stick a catheter in…well, where catheters get stuck.
Ironically, I had thought that getting cathed by that cute nurse was awkward and embarrassing…and that’s when the Almighty Cosmic Force said, “Here, thou shalt hold my beer.”
Anyways, it turned out to be the right call. Even though I didn’t have any issues nearly as serious as I had had in the morning, my bladder’s self-functionality that evening was still enough of an issue that Mom and I would had to have had a serious debate whether she should cath me, or–and hear me out–I should just let my bladder explode and save myself the humiliation.
E-“pee”-logue
While this actually is a fan-favorite bedtime story of The Elder’s, and having told it to her at least 10-15 times, there are still several things that never really occurred to me until recently.
A few days ago, when peeing happened to come up in conversation with a colleague, I regaled them with the aforetold tale. Apparently, I was anticipating writing this blog post and so it was a completely natural connection in my mind.
When I mentioned that the ultrasound had revealed over a liter of pee in my bladder, they asked perhaps what I should have asked the doctor many years earlier: “How much does a bladder typically hold?”
I realized I had no idea, so we googled it together, and I about shit myself when I found that an adult human bladder typically only holds 400-600 ml. I had no idea how far past the limits of all that was reasonable my bladder had been stretched.
Shortly after they had left, my newest colleague–fresh from France–came by to get my help on some stuff.
I told him that he had just missed an enthralling pee-pee conversation, and of course had to regale him as well with this tale of epic bladder proportions.
He had a good laugh about it, and then proceeded to tell me about what I suspect might actually be a French urban legend.
Apparently, the French are renowned for their love of trash-talking each other, even more so back in the days shortly after the French Revolution. In that era, there were a rather large number of town and civic meetings, and they were notorious for running ungodly lengths of time–often 6-8 hours, even.
And because every Frenchman was by default a prolific shit-talker, any time that someone left the meeting to go use the bathroom everyone else in the room would just spend the entire length of their absence talking smack on the poor shit-taker.3See what I did there? The fun with words never ends around here.
Eventually one bright fellow realized that if he never used the restroom during the meeting, then no one would get the chance to openly trash his reputation. This young man turned out to be rather dedicated to his own cause, and had successfully endured 5 hours of a meeting despite desperately needing to “take the piss.”
Unfortunately, his bladder wasn’t as much of a steel trap as his mind was, and right about 5 1/2 hours in, it ended up rupturing. And killing him in the process.
True story. Allegedly, at least.
It took me a moment to internalize the story I had just heard.
And when combined with the conversation I had only moments earlier, I came to a very sobering realization. While it seems like a humorous predicament, what had happened to me was actually a veritable close-call with death.4I wanted to say “near-death experience,” but I don’t think that means what I think it means.
Anyways, the point of the story is, first and foremost, for god’s sake use the restroom before you go into surgery.
And secondly, think twice before letting a doctor med-splain to you that your urge to pee is all in your head. Truth is, sometimes the health system will fail you and you’ll find that you’re your only advocate.
So here’s what you do: you grab them by the stethoscope and you tell him or her to “shut the ----- up and get me a ----- catheter right now. I’m having a life-threatening allergic reaction to the anesthesia, and if you don’t believe that this is a real medical condition, I know a guy how wrote not one but two whole blog posts about it!”
After all, unlike that dead French guy, I am verifiably not an urban legend.
Though I was just a wee bit too close to going down in history as a urine legend…
I mean, we all gotta go somehow, though, am I right?
Content created on: 27/28 January & 17 February 2020 (Monday/Tuesday/Monday)
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