A Naked Truth
It's taken me 2-3 days to generate enough will-power/courage to write this, my latest newsletter/blog. That's why it's a little later than usual, I'm sorry.
Why? Because it's personal/private and embarrassing. But I've eventually decided to write it down now and see how it feels... I wonder will that make me brave, stubborn or stupid? Time will tell. I promised a "warts n' all" account of living with Parky's so here it is. A naked truth.
The latest and for me so far, one of the most unforgiving and brutal symptoms. UTI - for those that don't know it's a Urinary Tract Infection. As a Parky's patient I'm susceptible to this because the muscle control of my bladder sometimes fails to work properly, so leaving water (pee) too long onboard which can lead to an infection. This has happened to me on 3 occasions during the past 2 years approximately. The third of which is right now.
The primary effect is that suddenly (or gradually) I cannot urinate - at all, nada, nil points as the French might say. If unresolved the pee starts backing up into the kidneys, leading eventually in the extreme to death, so medics consider it a medical emergency which view I fully support. On the first occasion sitting in the back of our car, on the way to hospital, with a seriously bad pain in my back/kidney area the situation became quite scary quite quickly.
The solution is extra drugs and a catheter to handle the pee levels whilst the infection clears up. The first time it happened to me the junior doctor at hospital fitted a 'permanent' catheter for 7 days... 24/7. That was hell. It hurt badly, started falling out after five days until a district nurse removed it, whilst commenting that she didn't think the hospital doctor had fitted it properly in the first place. After that you self-catheterize intermittently (say, 3 times a day) until the problem clears up, usually it seems in about 4/5 days... nice eh? The further trouble is of course self-fitting is not really practical if you have a Parky's tremor - you need help. Step forward Latex Lynne, suitably armed with catheter and gloves, who is now quite the expert. Honestly, we've had more than a few laughs in and around these incidents. Gotta keep laughing!
I'm reminded of another incident when I was in hospital many years ago, middle of the night (say, 2am approx) and most of us patients were wired up in some shape or form. It was a cardiac ward. Hard to sleep on those wards so I'm lying awake, minding my own business when a proper old chap called Joe jumped out of his bed (opposite to mine), stripped his pyjamas off and somehow managed to rip his catheter out - the pee flying everywhere. Meanwhile, Joe proceeded to sit down on my bed, half on my legs, for a nice little chat. I took the obvious action, quickly punching the BIG RED EMERGENCY BUTTON - the nurses came running as I yelled "Get him off me!" I still carry the mental scars! 😅
As my Dad used to say... "Never leave the house without a condom"
Nowadays perhaps it would be... "Never leave the house without a catheter"
Tangerine Dream time methinks! 😎