It was my first time. I yearned to do it, to empty myself in an outpouring of need, but I had never before experienced
penetration in that way and had been uneasy for days, anticipating the embarrassment and the pain.
"Maria," I said, "have you ever had any men fail with you before?"
"No," she said, compounding my anxiety.
Both of us washed our hands and gloved up. I stepped over in
front of the toilet and Maria, at ease in her green scrubs, directed me to drop my pants and underpants to my ankles. She unwrapped a snaky rubber tube--16 inches long, 3/16 of an inch wide, and colored like a pencil's eraser--on top of the
toilet tank and squirted on its tip, where its serpent eyes waited unblinkingly for immersion--a dollop of antiseptic lube. Then, taking me in her left hand and the catheter in her right, all business, Maria threaded the tube a bee-stinging eight inches
through my urethra and into my bladder. Suddenly urine was pouring out of my extended self, a lemonade waterfall roiling the pool in the toilet bowl. The conduit burned, but my bladder was indeed relaxing.
"Here, you take over," she said, handing me to myself, and I aimed the hose at the center of the bubbling pool.
On the flow went as a
musty, pent-up odor emanated from the bowl. How long had it been since I had completely drained myself? Since W's first term, probably. I had gone unwittingly through intertwining organic changes--a prostate swelling (duly noted, but untreated,
during annual digital exams by my family physician), a bladder growing more and more misshapen owing to loitering loads of liquid, one kidney giving up the ghost and the other losing functionality with each passing year--that made urination both
more frequent and less productive, until finally an ultrasound of my kidneys (the preparation for which required me to drink a quart of water and then expel it) revealed that, no matter how often I went, there was always fluid left. Unfortunately, said
the urologist to whom my nephrologist had sent me in some alarm after seeing the results of the ultrasound, conditions had now devolved to the point where neither drugs nor surgery would treat the problems successfully, making self-catheterization the only
way to slow the further, likely fatal, renal damage that would be caused by urine retention.
I continued to aim my micturating prosthesis. At least two minutes passed along
with the urine, which Maria and I speechlessly watched darken to gold as it accumulated in the bowl. Then abruptly I was done, totally depleted with no effort on my part, no tapering off, no sense that I needed a final draining squirt or two.
"You were really full," Maria marveled as she slid the catheter down and flicked it once, a last tablespoon of urine tumbling out. "You must feel much better now."
And I'm sure I did, but my attention was focused on my singed urethra.
"I could take Tylenol for
the pain, couldn't I?"
Maria shrugged. "I suppose so. Now let's do it again to make sure you've got it."
This time it was on me to conduct the undressed rehearsal--to reglove, to unwrap a catheter, to apply the lube and roll the tube's tip in it, to squeamishly, tremulously push it bladderward, to pretend that I had struck a gusher, then to
retract it and deposit gloves, catheter, and wrapper in the waste basket before pulling up and zipping up, all the while trying to ignore that scorching sensation.
The door
was suddenly ajar, and the urologist popped his head in. "How's it going?"
"Good. I think he's got it."
"Great. Let's get him up to reception and we'll order 90 for the first month."
Ninety? He wanted me to go up the down escalator three times a day?
He did. So Maria led me to reception, where from MedOne Healthcare Supplies we ordered 90 cath straight tips and a four-ounce flip-top tube of Surgilube, to be delivered to my home
the next day. The gloves I would pick up on my own at Costco in boxes of 400.
"Call me if you have any problems," Maria said flatly, implying that only a wimp would call,
and off she went to her next task while I headed to my car to take two Tylenol before driving to the softball field for a league game, fired up to play like never before.
Now,
three months later, thrice daily self-catheterizing has become as normal and monotonous as shaving, showering, teeth-brushing, and hair-combing. Within days after my first experience I went from feeling scalded to tingling to glowing to--gee
whiz--nothing. No more burnt offerings. Employing the catheter, I go in the morning after having spent a leisurely couple of hours catching up on the news, eating breakfast, and drinking 16 ounces of coffee and 30 ounces of water. I
go in mid-afternoon. I go before bedtime. I pee the old-fashioned way first thing after getting out of bed and top off the old tank in reverse, so to speak, two or three times during the day. The catheterization procedure, from closing the
bathroom door to opening it again, takes about five minutes. A typical flow time is 2:20; my shortest on record is 1:05, the longest 3:00. Yes, I do time it. What else is there to do while the urine echoes-- besides, that is, make up
puns? ("That catheter is very effective," Tom said drily.) Actually, I should probably be counting my blessings along with the seconds, because I now experience far fewer won't-take-no-for-an-answer urgings to go during the day and can even sleep
five to seven hours at night without having to get up, something I've been unable to do since leaving middle age. My urological comfort and health currently cost the Medicare-supporting American taxpayer $3.90 a day; an additional dollar comes out of
my own pocket. For the first time in my life, I'm able to piss away money and feel good about it.
So I've become comfortable with my daily routine at home. My
concern now is how to take care of business when I travel. Perhaps women when they are old wear purple without shame, but when I enter a men's room at a rest stop or Flying J or McDonalds, I'll have to be suffering from a boatload of dementia before
I'll ever step up to a row of urinals, lower my pants, feed in my tube, and hang it over one of the fixtures while the eyes of the other guys in the room widen and their brows arch and their heads shake and they find themselves unable to stifle grins as their
little sons point to me in astonishment. And what about sanitation? Where am I going to unwrap my catheter and lay it out for lubing? Not to worry, says my urologist. There is a passable solution: I can order pre-lubed, foldable
catheters for travel from the MedOne catheteria. Here, then, is my plan: before hitting the road, I'll fill a gym bag with a bunch of prelubes and some gloves and some old plastic produce bags, and when the need arises I'll head for a public facility
with one of each in my pocket. I'll wash my hands and enter a stall for privacy. I'll don gloves and lower my pants and underpants just to my knees to avoid soiling them in the inevitable pools of urine and pieces of dirty toilet paper fouling
the floor. I'll unwrap and insert the cather, fire away, retract the catheter, place it in a plastic bag like a guy cleaning up after his dog, doff and bag my gloves, hike up my garments, flush, deposit the bag in the trash, wash my hands, and be
on my merry way. ("Those prelubes really worked slick," Tom spouted off.")