Hi Rat Fans – sorry I haven’t been on for a while but I have been so busy what with my new job and everything. I started back at the welfare on April 6th and it is still as manic as ever.
My pre-sacral collection is still leaking and last week the consultant sent me for a eurethogram which is where they whack a bit of dye up the eye of your John Thomas and then look at it through an Xray machine. The idea is to make sure that the liquid that is leaking from my groin is not urine. Simple! Not if your name is Wilkie. I arrived at the Xray department not looking forward to it one bit. I handed in my card and was told to go in the lift to the first floor and got to room nine. I got out of the lift and there were two signs both with room nine written on them. Dilemma number one – do I go left or right? I decided to chose one and then go the opposite way and I turned right. I asked a nurse if I was in the right place and she said that this was room nineteen – the kids keep taking the one off the sign. I retrace my steps and arrive at room nine. There is a young woman asleep in a wheelchair who is painfully thin and has a number of canulas in her hands and arms. I give the nurse my card and she invites me to sit down. Simple.
The young woman is taken into the room and she is only in there matter of minutes before she is wheeled out to a waiting porter who whisks her away. I sit waiting while butterflies wearing pit boots do a clog dance in my stomach. A doctor with green overalls and apron with a guard around his neck turns up. Things are looking good. The nurse ushers me into a cubicle and tells me to take EVERYTHING off. “Everything!” I say. “Yes everything” is the response “even your shoes and socks.” I am given a gown which was probably a tent from Millets in a former life because it was huge and wrapped around my still ample body. I am asked to sit down again. Green overalls comes out of room nine and goes into a huddle with a nurse and a colleague. Soon they are joined by another doctor who is dressed the same as the first one. The muttering continues.
Finally, green overalls comes over and introduces himself. The Xray machine in number nine has broken down. Curses! Someone must have told it that Wilkie was coming. The other machine to do the job was on service so I needed to go to another room. I was asked to put my shoes back on and picking up my plastic bag which bore the legend “property of a patient of City hospital Nottingham” I was marched through the miles of corridors bollock naked under my marquee which had no ties on it, past innumerable people going about their business. They probably didn’t take much notice of me. It is a hospital after all but the paranoia chip kicked in nevertheless. Finally we reached the cardiac suite. “Don’t worry about it being the cardiac suite” says green overalls, “But we have got a machine in here which will do a better job than the one in room nine.” Hah! That’s if it works but this time I have the element of surprise.
He shows me a catheter and tells me that he is only going to insert it an inch unless he needs to go right up to the bladder. How did I know that he was going to have to all the way to the bladder?
I am given a small set of steps to climb up on the couch and told to lie on my back and get myself comfortable. A sheet is placed over my nether regions which has a hole for the dearest part of my body to poke through. I am dowsed in disinfectant and I hear the catheter being unwrapped. Oh my god! What have I done?
More tomorrow folks!
