Was back in hospital on 30 July to begin using my Neobladder. For the record my Neo was constructed using 60cm of my small intestine. Sounds a lot, but we have about 7 meters of small intestine and my bowel function, which could have been affected, seems to be behaving as it did pre-op ( I wont go into anymore detail!).
Arrived at 09:00 and met my urology nurse who told me the plan of action.
Firstly I needed another IV antibiotic session to minimise any chance of infection once the catheter was removed.
Then at 11:00 the catheter was indeed removed.
Removal is not painful, but is uncomfortable and I could see why once it was out. The tube into my bladder was about 6 inches long and attached to that were 2 stents about 10 inches long which were fed into each kidney to assist with urine emptying. Each stent had a coil like end presumably to keep it in place.
Luckily the tube and both stents came out in one go, as I was told that if the stents remained inside me the surgeon would have to do a bit of fishing with a flexible cystoscopy to retrieve them, which didn’t sound like a lot of fun.
The catheter had been in since the operation on 15 June, so it was a good feeling to have the very last surgery “thing” removed from my body.
I then went to get a coffee and an hour later I used my Neo for the first time. To void the bladder is a different technique to how you would void a normal bladder, you have to relax and kind of press down with your abdomen.
I voided 100ml on my first go and then embarked on my 24 hour marathon of hourly voids. Every 4 to 6 hours I also have to check if any residual urine is present in Neo, by performing a self catheterisation. This is not as bad as it sounds and depending on how good my voiding is it’s something I may not have to do very often going forward, if at all.
I do seem to be voiding pretty well and also am not having any leakage. Am typing this at 03:00 on Friday 31 July. Over half way through, and have managed to get some 50 minute chunks of sleep between voids, although wide awake now.
Tomorrow I increase to 2 hourly voids for a few days, then 3 hourly, then 4 hourly.
This steady process is all about gradually stretching the Neobladder to its working size.
A few times I’ve voided 200ml, which is the amount of x-ray contrast dye that was injected yesterday.
So far so good.
