Goodbye to the Man-Bag

After fourteen glorious days of fun and games, yesterday morning I was finally released from the evil clutches of my urinary catheter. There’s not much to be said for carrying around your own man-bag of pee while recuperating from surgery, much less wrestling with the hoses, bags, fittings and leg-tape as you try to heal. It’s uncomfortable, it hurts and it’s not something you want to hold in your hand while answering the door. In fact I was visited by two Jehovah’s Witnesses and answered the door in my bathrobe while clutching the catheter under my arm. Not cool on my part but it resulted in a suprisingly short visit from two of God’s messengers.

I won’t get into the removal process but can tell you that it felt like a small car with studded tires was speeding through my urinary tract. The process only lasted for a few seconds but will be one of those sensations, much like a dentist’s drill probing your gum line or hitting your head on an open cupboard door, that you tend to remember for the rest of your life. For now I’m pseudo-comfortable and healing quickly as my body rallies to repair this latest indignity but life is much more manageable without the man-bag. The last night was one of the worst experiences of my life as things were getting a bit sensitive down there. Both myself and my extremely patient wife enjoyed about 33 minutes of sleep as I wailed and moaned through the night. If my doctor wouldn’t take it out that day I would. Really…I would have. It was that bad.

So for those of you that will be enjoying the physical, social and visual aspects of your own urinary catheter in the future I can only hope it’s a short event. Fourteen days can feel like an eternity when you have a tube in your penis so keep your chin up, try to make the best of it and don’t answer the door.

For an explanation of why I had a urinary catheter, please view this previous post.