December 10, 2009

i shudder at the memory

*WARNING: Not for the squeamish!!!*

November 17, 2009 1:00am

Well, ain’t this a kick in the head. I spent the weekend taking naps and slept in this (Monday) morning so that I could stay up to work late tonight, and we ran out of parts and left early. We still made fairly decent money, especially considering what I would be making working in the lab, but now I’m home at 1am and wide awake. I was scheduled to work until 3am, and I’m afraid it may be at least that late before I’m tired enough to fall asleep! At least I can get caught up on my writing, right?

So I left off at Saturday the last time I wrote. Saturday was quite the day, to say the least. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself giving all the details of the doctors appointments I’ve had over the last few months, but suffice it to say I have been seeing a urologist. I went the first time a little over two weeks ago, and I was rather impressed. Cody went with me for moral support, and we both agreed after the appointment that we really liked this doctor and felt very comfortable with him. Given the crap I’ve gone through recently with doctors, that’s quite a big deal. Well the urologist, Dr. Schneider, diagnosed me with overactive bladder and started me on a medication to treat it. He asked that I come back in two weeks for a follow up, and mentioned that he would like to scope my bladder on that visit.

Now, on the initial visit, we had already become closer than most men are, given the need to check for hernia and such, as well as a good old prostate exam. The thought of having my bladder scoped was not pleasant at all. He strongly recommended it though, so as to rule out bladder stones or any other conditions he might have missed with the routine check and ultrasound. So I begrudgingly made the appointment and just spent two weeks ignoring the impending test.

On Saturday morning, Cody was kind enough to go with me again. This time, I had a little more help dealing with the impending procedure though: I made sure to take a Xanax before I left! Now, I knew the general idea of what was going to happen, but I can say now that I was in no way prepared for the reality of what was about to happen. We discussed how I was doing on the meds that he had prescribed, and then without further ado, I was instructed to drop trou and lie back on the table. Dr. Schneider was kind enough to give me a paper blanket to drape over myself so I wouldn’t be completely exposed until it was necessary.

He then warned me that I would feel some cold soap, and he wasn’t lying. It was most definitely cold. Having the doctor clean off my penis was definitely a feeling I could live without, but as I was soon to learn, that discomfort was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. He had told me that he would give me lidocane to numb me before inserting the scope, but I had sort of assumed it would be some sort of cream applied to the skin. I was very, very wrong.

The doctor told me he was going to be giving me the lidocane, and then I felt him start to squeeze it into my urethra. Oh my, talk about unpleasant. He told me to just take deep breaths, as he was almost finished. I have never felt anything so uncomfortable in my life. He finally finished and then told me that he would be placing a clamp on my penis to keep the medicine in. He then covered me up and said he’d be back in a few minutes, at which point I should be numbed up and ready to go.

What he failed to mention was how freaked out I would be when I peeked under the blanket after he walked out of the room. I can’t explain what the clamp looked like with any sort of accuracy, but suffice it to say that seeing that contraption clamped onto my junk was very disconcerting! Cody was a doll at this point. I was still reeling from the discomfort of having something injected into my penis, and a little freaked out about the wire squishing me “down there”. He took it upon himself to go through the Reader’s Digest that he had brought in with him and read all the jokes to me. I wasn’t able to pay attention to all that he was saying due to my freaking out, but it definitely went a long way to calm me down.

After about five minutes, Dr. Schneider returned as promised. Except he failed to mention he’d be bringing a nurse back with him as well. *sigh* What’s one more person looking at my junk at this point, right? He said they were ready to get started so I laid back and waited. Turns out I didn’t have to wait long.

I have never in my life experienced anything so uncomfortable! I couldn’t do justice to the horridness of it if I tried. My immediate reaction was to just start sucking air. Dr. Schneider was talking to the nurse and Cody as though he wasn’t trying to split me in half from the penis up, and told me, “Good, good. Just take deep breaths.” Deep breaths my ass. I was in full on lamaz mode. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand it. I felt every single millimeter of that scope as he forced up into my bladder. I thought I was going to start crying or screaming or both. Next thing I know, he’s telling me my bladder looks great. No stones, no tumors. He’s going to check my urethra on the way out, which was fine too, as well as my prostate. It was over. I could dry off and get dressed; the nurse would have my antibiotic when I was done. I would be pretty uncomfortable until later that night or tomorrow morning according to him, but just be sure to drink lots of water.

Oh, it so was not close to being over.

After I dried off and got dressed (while telling Cody everything I wanted to scream during the procedure but couldn’t), I went across the hall to use the restroom before leaving. Oh what new level of hell is this?! Going to the bathroom makes the burning/pressure/evil feeling worse!

Stop at the receptionist to schedule a follow up in two months, and dance to the elevator thinking I’m going die if I have to drive home. Thank God Cody came with me. After the elevator ride, I bolted across the hall to use the restroom again, since I thought I would just pee myself right there. Oh, this is absolute torture. Peeing should not feel this horrendous!

I wiggled in my seat all the way home, trying to no avail to be able to explain to Cody what fresh hell was in my pants. I made it home and up the stairs, at which point I took the lessons I had learned already and decided to sit on the toilet to pee rather than stand. At least that way I didn’t have to worry about my knees buckling from the pain and discomfort. After some more lamaz breathing, I managed to make it downstairs to get a bottle of water. Wonderfully ironic, this situation. I feel like my penis is on fire when I pee, and I’m supposed to drink a bunch of water?! Cruel. Cruel and heartless.

After several more stops on the toilet, which involved a recovery time of at least twice as long as it took to pee just so I could stand back up, I had had enough. I told Cody I didn’t want to be awake for this torture anymore and went in the bedroom to lie down and try to sleep. Thankfully, I was able to sleep comfortably without too much discomfort. I did have to get up to pee one time, and since I had held it so long at that point, it was a new kind of hell. Same situation when I woke up, too. Fortunately for me, the more I went, the better it got. The water seemed to be helping in some way. By late that afternoon, I was comfortable enough to be able to leave the house, so Cody and I were able to go out as we had planned.

We had a function with our couple’s group that I thought I might have to miss, but I decided to wing it and just hope that it didn’t start to get bad again. Fortunately, I only had to pee about three times, and although it was rather uncomfortable, it was nothing like what it had been.

We actually had quite a nice time. We got to meet two new couples, including the hosts for the evening, and spend some time getting to know some other couples a little better. The party was a potluck and game night, and there were a ton of people there. I was kind of uncomfortable at first, and wishing I had popped a Xanax before we left, but eventually I relaxed a bit and just went with it. I had intended to just kind of sit and watch everyone else play, but one of the couples brought out a game and asked Cody and I to play. They were very encouraging, and we ended up having such a good time that we convinced a larger group to come downstairs and play with us a little later. After a few rounds of that game, we went back upstairs, and one of the same guys asked if I wanted to join in a different game, which ended up being very odd, but fun none the less. So I definitely owe Bud and Robert big thanks for making the evening more enjoyable.

Right before we left, ______ asked how my sabbatical was going and was curious as to what it was all about. I told him that I was trying to adjust to the new meds and work on myself and some relationships. He made a pointed effort to make sure I knew he understood where I was coming from and what I was going through and suggested that the four of us get together some time, as he thought we could talk about our common issues. I was very moved by his willingness to help and am actually somewhat eager to be able to talk to someone who’s experienced the same things I have. I won’t push for it to happen, but I’m hoping that ______ can help Cody understand what it’s like from his end too, so that Cody doesn’t feel so alone.

Sunday was much less eventful. Cody and I were both very tired from being out late, but Cody had promised to work in the soup kitchen at church that morning, and had to be out of the house by 8am. I had hoped to be able to go to Sunday School, but I was still having trouble going any length of time without needing to pee, so I skipped out on that and just went to church.

After church, Cody was finally able to get his H1N1 shot, which was great since he is on a medication that is an immunosuppressant. By the time he got home, we were both absolutely exhausted and decided to lie down and take a nice quiet nap together. We even agreed to lock the dogs up this time, since we were so tired that we didn’t want to worry about them being fidgety or waking us up to go outside. It’s nice to have the bed to ourselves every once in a while!

We ended up going out to dinner with a couple of friends later that night, which was a nice little treat. The food wasn’t the greatest, but the company was excellent. Unfortunately, they ended up running later than they had planned though. Since I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t be eating till much later, I had taken my medicine on an empty stomach, which caused me to be even more nauseous than usual. By the time we got our food, I was stuck eating to try and combat the nausea, but eating was actually making it worse.

After we got home, I read for a while and then started getting sleepy. I don’t know if I was fighting a bug or what, but I just couldn’t stay awake any longer. Despite taking a two hour nap that afternoon, I still ended up in bed by 9pm, and I slept for over 12 hours! I woke up several times in the morning, but I knew that I needed to stay in bed as long as possible to prepare myself for working into the wee hours tonight.

I’m finally caught up! Now I can finally start going back over all the other crap I’ve wanted to write about. It’s almost 2:30am, and I think I’m finally tired enough to go to bed, so I’ll pick this up again tomorrow I think.

1 comment:

Etepay said...

I should have heeded the warning because ouch, ouch, ouch!

I'm not even sure how to respond except I'm glad you're alright and they didn't find anything.