Foley

Despite feeling retched, I managed to drag myself to see my urologist today as I really hate missing her appointments, and I came home with you guessed it....a Foley catheter! She has been umming and ah-ing about this for a while now as she has been trying really hard to keep any kind of intervention to a minimum at the moment. Anyway, I'm not sure its one of those highlights of life for me, but when all is said and done, as my bladder has developed a life of its own recently, the pros out weigh the cons more or less. I'm fairly sanguine about it as I try to see most things as part of life's adventure I suppose.
Anyway its a straightforward procedure whereby I lie back, look at the ceiling and make witty conversation! As I said to the nurse you never think you're going to develop an interest in catheters but here we are! After about half an hour of tutoring, mostly about bags, what to do with them, where to put them, how to attach them and so on I left with a good supply to keep me going until my own ones arrive, some elasticated thingies to make sure they keep attached and a plastic hanger so I can sort it out at bedtime without problems. I also have a good supply of antibiotics as well to keep nasties away.

This is supposed to be a temporary measure, mostly to give me a bit of a break from the hassle of Intermittent catheters, and will have to be removed before the end of the pregnancy. When the baby gets bigger it pushes on the bladder and can cause damage and bleeding. Unfortunately for me I'm not the straightforward case, typical isnt it? Ive had over the last 8 months in particular every bladder difficulty you could imagine, and 3 ways of going for a pee, so I'm at the point of not caring anymore one way or another. When you are pregnant no one wants to do anything, which I understand, but it means you have to do things you wouldnt normally do, however if it makes life easier for me then fine.

Couple of things I have to do in particular is try not to use a bag in the day if I can help it. This means I have a valve at the end of the catheter and use it the same way I would as an intermittent catheter. This is to stop your bladder shrinking apparently. However if I continue to experience something called strangulation then I can use a bag all the time. See, I thought this would be easy but already there are buts!! Strangulation is something I have every time I empty. If you imagine a balloon full of air, that's your bladder, and then suck all the air out, eventually the rubber of the balloon sticks together as all the air has totally gone. This is what happens to my bladder and it hurts. A lot. The other thing to consider is that I'm still likely to have a low grade bladder infection which gives me extremely painful symptoms because I'm actively emptying. By using a bag then this means the process becomes more passive so in theory pain free. Still, I have to try it without bag first, but it will be interesting to see how it works at night time and if I see any noticeable difference.

So anyway this is pretty much being reviewed on a weekly basis, As for me I'm just sick of the whole thing and hope that for at least a few months it will all happen as it should, and I can forget about it. Now I was thinking of adding an illustration here, but having had a good look around I didn't really want to give an anatomy lesson, interesting as it is, so here is an photo of someone to show the sort of thing I'm talking about. No its not me,... As If huh?!!!