Tuesday, December 11, 2007

and what did this test tell me? absolutely nothing.

Since I know you've all been on pins and needles, waiting to hear the next installment in a continuing series entitled "The Days of Flibberty's Bladder," I shall provide excruciating detail about an excruciating procedure I underwent Friday last. Wait, you haven't been waiting? Oh well, I'm still gonna write about it.

Have any of you ever had a catheter, ever? I do believe it's pretty much de rigueur when you have a baby, no? If you have, then you know how incredibly weird and uncomfortable said catheter can be. If you don't know, I shall tell you that it feels incredibly weird and uncomfortable, and sort of like someone is slowly placing a small tube up a very small whole and poking at your bladder with it's needle like end, because that is exactly what they are doing. To add insult to injury, I got another catheter, with a condom over it (seriously, I think it was a Trojan) up my back end. To further humiliate me, I was seated in a chair that contained its very own toilet that was hooked up to a computer, and it had stir-ups such that my knees were up toward my ears. I'm sure I looked hot.

They attached electrodes to the back end catheter, and also grounding wires to my butt cheeks. I did not know that butt cheeks could serve as a place to ground electrical current, but helpful knowledge next time my car battery dies.

They also instructed me to pee into the chair toilet, while a doctor and two nurses monitored the computer for my flow rate. Sometimes I have trouble peeing in my own stall if there is someone in the stall next to me, so you can imagine how difficult it was to pee when there were actual people in the room with me, eagerly anticipating my flow. They kept looking over at me, like, "why aren't you peeing?" and that's when I started sweating like a deranged monkey.

After I finally "voided" they started refilling up my bladder with saline solution, and instructed me to tell them when (1) I felt like I could go to the bathroom; (2) I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom; and (3) I felt like I would explode into a thousand tiny pieces if I didn't go right NOW.

The liquid started flowing into my bladder and it was a very strange sensation because the saline was very cold. It actually felt kind of nice for a second, until I reached stage 3 when my eyes started to bug out and I actually grabbed the nurse and informed her that critical capacity had certainly been reached. But no, no, they wanted to push me as far as I could go. And that's when I exploded. The end.

11 comments:

Jess said...

Oh my god. That sounds unconstitutionally awful. I can't believe they did that to you! And the test results revealed nothing? Damn it!

Tess said...

OH. MY. GOD IN HEAVEN. This is horrible. Hideous. TERRIBLE. I am so sorry.

There is zero chance I would be able to pee with two people standing there waiting for me. ZERO.

Stephanie said...

You poor girl. I can't even imagine. I hope this is the last of the awful, non-conclusive tests!

email said...

I'm wondering if they've thought of using this procedure to torture prisoners?

What purpose did the back end serve? Or the knees to the ears?

So glad for you that it's over!

LoriD said...

That sucks that you had to go through all that and still no answers. Sucks.

artemisia said...

Oh, Flibberty! That sounds awful. I would have positively CRIED. Oh, I am almost crying for you right now.

I am really sorry the test didn't reveal anything.

Man, western medicine is not humane in the slightest.

Anonymous said...

Delurking to say...shit, that sounds bad. Here's hoping you never, never have to do that again.

Anonymous said...

By the way, just found your blog through Tessie -- given that you've deleted your archives, when you get a chance could you write a sort of sum-up post that catches up the rest of us on what we missed? I'm a lawyer too, escaped from a few different Chicago law firms to happily work as in-house counsel, so while I understand why you can't identify where you work, I'd love to know the back story on how you got from Billings to Chicago! Enjoying your blog...

Anonymous said...

Holy crap, I wish I could give you a hug because you definitely need one. And about the peeing thing, I'm with you - if there's total silence in the women's bathroom, but I know someone's in there, I will hold it until I'm certain I'm by myself again, or someone else gets things going.

Swistle said...

This. Oh. This is so awful.

B2G said...

My Britney hurts just thinking about what you went through. Ew. Ugh. Gah. Ick. Vom.