I'm in Real Trouble
This entry was posted on 5/11/2007 11:14 PM and is filed under Recovery.
May 11, 2007
I’m in real trouble. My urethra is basically closed off with dead tissue and it looks like I may have a painful, year long fight to try to correct it.
Here is what happened:
Almost three weeks ago I had a Foley Catheter put in to allow my damaged urethra to heal. It was supposed to stay in for six weeks. After about two weeks I started having bladder spasms. It happened on the weekend of course. It was about the worst pain I have ever had and lasted for longer and longer periods over three days. Finally, over the phone at 3am, the doctor instructed me on how to take out that type of catheter. You have to make a cut to deflate the balloon that holds it in your bladder and then pull. Once it was out the pain subsided and I could pee normally, at least for a few hours.
A note of caution for those of you who ever have a Foley Catheter. You have no control for a while when it comes out. In my case it took about 24 hours after it had been in for 2 weeks.
After a few hours of relief the peeing became more and more difficult and pain came back. I went in and they took a sample to check for infection and prescribed some antibiotics.
The antibiotics didn’t help. The system continued its shutdown and I found myself on the phone again with the doctor getting instructions on how to self catheterize. It was that or go to the emergency room on a Saturday night. I was now in excruciating pain from not urinating for many, many hours. I used the tube from my old Foley catheter and pushed it in my urethra until it reached the bladder. Urine sprayed as if from a pressure hose. Again relief, but it was only temporary. I used a self-administered catheter for a week whenever I couldn’t pee. Unfortunately, that became more and more often. I was peeing out sloughing material, which is basically dead tissue, primarily from the HIFU. After a few days I would have to stick the tube in 2 or 3 times to get any urine because the chunks of flesh were blocking the tube.
Finally, it was no longer effective, which brought us back to the doctors office to have my second cystourethroscopy, basically a camera up the urethra. The results were horrible. Even the doctor repeated “oh my god,” three different times. There was so much damaged tissue that, for a while, he couldn’t even find the urethra channel.
His prognosis was for at least six months to a year with a Foley catheter. Even then, it might not heal correctly and we may have to come up with a surgical procedure. However, he said that a surgical procedure would be highly risky with a strong possibility of permanent incontinence and/or other problems.
I have additional risk of cardiac event during surgery with general anesthesia due to my heart disease and sleep apnea.
Tonight is a lonely and depressing night. Both my wife and my daughter are out of town. My greatest strength comes from the fact that my friend Mitch offered to drive over here tonight from Melbourne, FL. That would be 3 hours each way and he would have to be back home by late morning. I couldn’t ask him to do that but it is hard sitting here alone, to be positive right now.
