By the time we got home I was ready to go to bed. I needed to figure out the logistics of going to bed with a catheter and bag that home beds just are not designed to accommodate. For that matter clothing is not practical either. Those awful hospital gowns are really well designed for their purpose. Lacking that, I have to settle for just the tee shirt and a foot of adhesive tape.
Tape placement becomes paramount over the next few days. The catheter can't be taped to the entry point. If it is taped anywhere else, the length is fixed but doesn't correlate to the foci of a flexing body. As the body bends the tube slides in to poke and the tube slides out to pull. All sense seems concentrated on a recently reconstructed bladder to urethra connection. Over the following week this would prove to be a major discomfort. It also caused major hemorrhoids. I looked up the anatomy and all systems seem pretty closely associated in the region. At least I can understand how they are all involved in the recovery.
On the brighter side of the pains and constant awareness I realize the skill of the surgeons in sparing the nerves in the area. I take this as a good sign for latter recovery of control. I will probably be able to pass remedial potty training 101.
Bowel movements are effected for five or six days by what I was given in the hospital . They were a dark green, viscous matter that lay in the water like a cold lava lamp. No matter what I ate, it was always what I thought BILE would look like. It was also probably the result of the erythromycin and neomycin changing the bacterial content of my system. Eliminating most if not all bacteria. The effect was much appreciated in my condition. There was absolutely no straining allowed or needed.
The pain was so intense getting into bed, that once I sat, I couldn't reposition myself at all. Sally had no more idea how to get me in the bed than I had. We were able to set me pretty well. Lying down was not good. Any leaning required me to use core muscles and they burned like hell; but I was afraid to take that leap of faith and just fall over to my side. Once on my side I couldn't lift my butt or shoulders to get further into the bed. I lay clinging to the whipcord trimmed edge to keep from falling out of bed, perched like a fledgling on twig, holding desperately to the thin branch of trim. What a night! Perhaps I should have stayed in the hospital.
After a few years of a nightly trip to the head interrupting a good nights sleep, I thought I would be able to sleep eight to ten hours straight as no pressure would build in my bladder and no people padding around to check things. Sleeping is no more possible at home than it was prior to the surgery or in the hospital. After a very few hours my hip and knees and shoulder were extremely painful without my Aleve for a week and my mobility to roll on to my other side. The hose is just long enough to lay on the one side, stretch out under the cover to the bag, which we hung on the low drawer of a small game cabinet placed by my bed side. A longer hose would help that, I think.
I wasn't feeling like a party; but Sally wanted the kids over on Wednesday evening. It went pretty good. Sally bought me a very nice robe and I was getting better by the hour. I learned to maneuver in and out of a chair and to the bathroom. The home toilet is much lower than the hospital version. The trick to sitting and rising on my own is to be able to position my feet under my center of gravity. That changes the muscles used to rise from the core of my body to the strength of my legs and arms. I was also starting to feel pretty well past my prime for bathing; but, I couldn't bath 'til Thursday.
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