Friday the 5th of July and its TWOC day (Trial With Out Catheter). So I am up early going through my new routines hopefully for the last time. I choose easy to remove clothes before getting a couple of rounds of toast down me. As a precaution I take a prophylactic co-codamol as I m not sure how gentle a process taking the plastic piping out is going to be. With my loins well and truly girded my partner drives me to the clinic.
On arrival we get shown into the familiar waiting room, it is here I wait to see the oncologist on the rare occasions he deigns to see me in person. My partner and I check our phones while others around us chat and I notice some have little blue lidded jugs of water form which they are drinking. The conversation around us is strange with one person asking who won the general election and another not being sure. No one seemed to know that Keir Starmer had just won a landslide Labour victory over night. I get called in after about half an hour. I am lead to a clinic room, number 17, where I am greeted by a nurse, a student nurse and a healthcare assistant, all women. I recognise the nurse as the one who taught me how to self catharise myself when I came back from my Jamaica kidney failure adventure. Without putting a too finer point on it the removal of the catheter was a perfunctory yank and mop up process after which I was sent back to the waiting room where I was given my on blue lidded jug of water to drink, slowly, and shown where my personalised urine bottle was by the toilets. I was instructed to return to the clinic room when I had used my bottle. So I returned to amusing myself in the waiting room until I experienced “a good urge” as instructed by the nurse. Inevitably such urges take their time until at last I was able to bound into the clinic room and go “Ta Da” at which point the assistant scuttled off to measure my out put while the nurse scanned my bladder to see how much I had retained. All was acceptable but the nurse insists I repeat the process. Clearly it was a two strikes before you are out process, so I return to the waiting room and take my partner to the maternity unit coffee shop for coffee and a chocolate bar. We walk back to the waiting area and find that most of the other people have gone or are on the way out. Its tricky knowing when your getting the urge post plastic piping but eventually it becomes all to clear and fairly soon I am back in clinic room 17 going “Ta Da” again. The same routine follows and this time I am declared even more satisfactory and told I am discharged. Back in the waiting room I wait for my discharge letter, which duly arrives with the relevant arithmetic and advice in it.
My partner drives me home, however I had forgotten just how much water and coffee I had drunk in a short space of time. I am not going to elaborate beyond saying that I was mightily relieved ( no pun intended but accurate) to find a disposable bottle of water in the car, which I could refill in a somewhat urgent and acrobatic fashion. Once home I was able to get my breath and relax a little. My partner then had to ferry my eldest daughter to another hospital to have a scan. While they were away I settled down to Wimbledon and then a quarter final of the European football competition. During this time various parcels and packages arrived for me which I neatly stowed for tomorrow.
The evening was seen through with fish and chips and a second quarter final which ended late due to going into extra time and ultimately a penalty shoot out, which France won and in so doing put Portugal out. By this time I was floundering for energy but watched the Last Leg Election Special before taking my night meds and heading for bed. Despite my successfully liberated state I chose the spared bed again just in case my body was not yet ready to go through a night without adequately alerting me that I needed to pay attention to my comfort. I settled down to what proved to be a fitful night but the morning arrived having been navigated successfully.
Saturday! Happy Birthday me. 76 today. I wake up bagless but I’m experiencing phantom bag syndrome, I guess it will take a couple of days for my body to get used to not having the catheter. I join my partner in our room and we have warm drinks and a bit of a chat as we usually do on a Saturday morning. Wrapping myself up in my dressing gown I have breakfast and when my partner and eldest daughter have gone shopping I attempt to tidy up a bit and organise the meds admin. I have loads of stuff to get rid of now and washing to be done. Some of the stuff gets shifted but nicest of all is responding to the happy birthday messages from friends and family. I open the cards and parcels that arrived yesterday and send my messages of thanks. The luxury of the morning is to shower and once again feel clean and refreshed before settling down in the lounge to draft the blog while Alexa plays me meditation music. When my partner and eldest daughter return they give me the new book that as been delivered. It is Prospects by Kate Wilson , on of the people with whom my partner and I spent on an Arvon writing course a couple of years ago. I am eager to get on and read it as Kate was a bright and witty person who was very acute in her observations.
I shall put here what I think once I am into the new book, but for now I am content to read, watch Wimbledon and wait for England’s match against the Swiss tonight. I feel something nudging me to write something but I am not sure what it is yet, but occasionally I get the sense that there is something brewing in the depths. The evening arrives and I suffer the torture of watching England win on penalties and then eat birthday cake and open presents. I am very fortunate and feel loved and cared about. Eventually I get to take my night meds and finish drafting the blog. I have run out of energy and I am still feeling like my gut is off by the time I go to bed but I have a new tree to plant and a garden to tend as well as a new slate house number to put up outside if the weather gets better. For now I count my blessings and hope for sleep tonight.
