Yesterday (Feb 7) at 6:00 pm I got my hoses and tubes removed.

Since the surgery on January 15^th I’ve had a catheter and a stent – both with tubes that went to collection bags – that were a part of my existence.  If you’ve never had a catheter you don’t want one.  The stint was pretty much a non-issue but it can cause problems if you can’t get the holding bag to stick to your skin right and then it drains all night onto your sheets.  Big yuck factor.

At night I had to either sleep flat on my back or on my left side with the tubes tucked under my legs so they could flow down to the bags on the floor by the bed.  Here’s something most of you may not know – having only two sleeping positions isn’t a good strategy for getting good sleep.  For three weeks now I’ve only been getting a very low level of effective sleep… just enough to keep me functional but not enough to make me feel WOW!

That may finally change.

No Tubes

Feeling about 100 pounds lighter last night as I got home I was really looking forward to getting to bed and having a wonderful, dream filled experience while experiencing multiple sleeping positions.  Unfortunately – that was not to be.

No tubes meant going to the bathroom.  That’s right.  Now that I don’t have tubes I have to actually get up and go to the bathroom.  For three weeks it would just flow out while I was awake and while I was asleep.  Not so anymore.

And not in the same way as before.

Every 4 Hours

As you know, part of this process is they built me a “fake” bladder (a neobladder) out of my small intestine.  Well, when they pulled the tubes that new bladder came online and started working.  Unfortunately, that bladder is 1.0.  It isn’t ready for prime time.

With the catheter in for 3 weeks the muscles needed to hold everything in are a bit weak (time for my kegels.)  In addition, the new bladder needs to be “stretched” over time to accommodate larger quantities.  So the plan now is to try to go about every 2 hours – and then on a 4 hour schedule I need to “flush” the new bladder to make sure it isn’t filling up with stuff other than urine.  How do you do that you ask?  Well – to share way too much info with this group – I have to insert a catheter every 4 hours and inject saline solution into the bladder and then make sure roughly the same amount comes back out.  That way I know I’m emptying it correctly.  Sounds like a party no?

That will go on for a week or so and then we go to every 6 hours then 8, then maybe once a day and then at some point in the future – fingers crossed – never.  Then I’ll just be like one of the boys.  Point being – I now have to set my alarm to make sure that I don’t sleep more than the 4 hours between flushings.  That isn’t good for sleep either.  It may be a bit better than before – but still not ideal.

It’s funny – with the new bladder I have none of the normal clues you get used to for urination – I don’t know when I’m full.  I don’t know when I’m empty.  I don’t, in some cases, even know if I’m going.  It is a whole new experience – one I have to learn in order to manage this going forward.

I can say this – so far it looks like it will work like a charm and I’m very happy we went this route over just a bag on the side.

So for the short run – adult depends, catheters and kegels.

I do live the glamorous life.