Thoughts from the front line - 3

My story continues. I'd been admitted to hospital as an emergency case on the Tuesday and had had the first op on Thursday. That's just two weeks ago but it seems like a life time ago and only yesterday at the same time. This cancer stuff really mangles up the brain doesn't it! :-) Important: this blog contains thoughts on rude things - you have been warned!!! So, as I said before, I was feeling great after the operation where they cut most of the growth out from my bladder and the prospect of a further op to remove the bladder completely didn't freak me out too much. My main concern was sex. It had amused me that my private parts would have no further function except for sex but I didn't know what the effect the operation would have on my "ability". My thoughts were that I could cope with the stoma and plastic bags being velcrowed to my leg as a "urine disposal method" but what about sex, erections, orgasms, whips, bond... sorry, probably going into too much detail :-). Friday came and I had another day of continuous food and drink supplies by the wonderful staff, great chats with the chaps in the other beds. (I now know how the old "press button A, press button B telephone boxes worked.) But Friday was another key day as I was taken on a mile long hike through the hospital to have a CT scan. It was my first time being pushed in a wheelchair and I recommended to the porter that they put a steering wheel on the front so that the passenger could help steer round the bends! My porter was certainly in a hurry and the twists and turns felt like I was in the lead car of a ghost train ride. I was fully expecting a skeleton to fly out in front of me as we turned every corner! The scan was totally quick and painless. I was getting to know what were ok things and what were bad things (I still hate catheters - evil devil inspired things - did I do something wrong in a previous life??). I saw Paul, my fav doc, later on his rounds and told him I'd had the scan. 30 minutes later he came back to say "I've been to look at the results of your scan and on first look it looks good in that the cancer doesn't seem to have spread outside the bladder, and that's good news". The news made me happy and it was possible that I could be home on Saturday :-) Happy me. Saturday came and went. Too much blood still in the urine, we'll take another look tomorrow... catherter stays in Sunday came and went. Still not good enough, best to wait for the Monday team to review taking the catheter out, keep o with the irigation... Monday. Yep you guessed right. Bum, pooh and many rude things. Help I want to get out of here!!!! Tuesday. My week's anniversary and finally they decided that the catheter could come out. YIPPIE!!!! And now the "bladder retention battle" begins. Ok, I'll explain the background. Over the last, we think, couple of years my bladder had started to expand as it got more and more difficult to pee. The result being that my bladder could now hold over one and a half litres without me even thing I needed to go. Scans of my bladder now showed that I was retaining just under a litre after having a pee. When could I go home - when I was retaining less than 500ml... Now, as we all know, it is impossible to pee when we need to. Also after having a catherter in for a week the natural processes were a bit screwed up (cocked up?) and I found myself not needing a pee for over 5 hours once being set the task! Then, all of a sudden, god I need to go, out of my way, man coming through! Ahh, bliss and I'd collected 300ml. I was now a proud man. Nurse, nurse, I need a bladder scan I cry. And the survey says... 650ml - better but not good enough so I was destined to stay another night and fingers crossed for an early thursday release. 3 am woke up and needed to make a rapid trip to the loo opposite. Another 300ml - looking good, yeh! But couldn't get back to sleep so read for 4 hours until breakfast. Tony in the bed next to me then went in for his shower and as soon as he closed the door I thought - god I need a pee and I need it NOW! Where's my bottle? I need to go but I need to measure it still or I wont be allowed out of here. I can't wait for Tony to finish, I need to pee NOW! So there's me sitting on the chair next to my bed, 7 o'clock in the morning and I'm peeing into a bottle as the breakfast trolley arrives in front of my bed. Always the polite one I managed to finish what I needed to do and slide the bottle under my bed before the HCA turned round and offered me my cereals :-). However, everyone too busy so no bladder scan straight away. So after breakfast was finished I asked if they could scan my bladder. Sorry, the sister explained, it's been too long since you last went so let's wait to next time... Bum, pooh and even more bad words! Next pee three hours later and the results of the scan were... 790ml What? It's gone up? Why? How? Not fair! So I talked to the staff about what I needed to do to get home. "We need it under 500ml and if there's no progress today we will probably put a catherter back in to help drain the bladder. Catherter back in? No, No, No. I tell my visitors, no way. I'd rather stay in another week and let my bladder slowly get back to normal than have one of those things in again. Evil, devil things and, and, and... it still hurts from when it was in before, just not natural having a thing that size pushed up your... well I think you know what I mean. Afternoon came and went. Evening visitors arrived and I was still fighting the battle and by now all the nurses were willing me to pee more and retain less. I'm sure that they wanted to get rid of me as much as I wanted to leave them! Anyway I sent my beloved home just before 8pm and inlaws left about 20 minutes later. I was going to be in for another night so might as well settle down to reading and watching a bit of TV. 10 mins later I need a pee - nearly 400ml (sadly I can now tell volume by time and steam strength rather than needing a bottle) and new scan. Bum it's still 560ml - just 3ml less than the last one. Bum, but wait... the nurse is talking to the doctor... was that a smile I see? The doc then turned towards me and simply gave me a thumbs up! Find phone, "Hi babe, I can come home, yes now, tonight" Andrew was a happy boy. 8 days in hospital after being told I had cancer and my joy was about only having half a litre of urine in my bladder. How my world had changed! I was going home. Coming next. Being good, eating well, exercise and that horrible horrible thing called "waiting". A xxxx