Because I can’t be miserable 100% of the time.
So after surgery, as I mentioned, I had a catheter in. I’ve had catheters before but for some reason this one was particularly irritating and made me feel the urge to pee nonstop, which is very unpleasant! If you’re not familiar with a catheter, God bless. It’s a rubber tube that goes through your urethra up into your bladder to drain your pee so you don’t have to go to the toilet. It is especially helpful after a surgery like this because apparently some people have difficulty voiding their bladders after genital surgery because of the swelling.
In order to be discharged, they needed to reverse fill the catheter with 300ccs of saline, remove the catheter, and I then had to pass at least 100ccs of saline back out to prove my bladder was good to go. As a side note, Google informs me that the average human bladder maxes out between 300 and 550ccs of fluid.
The nurse was wonderful but as soon as she started I was like, “Okay my bladder is already full, this is not going to work.” I had been telling everyone my bladder felt super full but they’d all checked the catheter and been like, “Everything is working fine!” so I assumed I was just being a weenie. But again – I’ve had catheters before and never felt the urgency I did this time.
So she keeps filling. One huge syringe… I’m wincing. TWOOOO huge syringes… I’m squirming. THREEEEEEEE HUGE SYRINGES… I was like, lady, you best stand clear when you remove the catheter because I am bolting for the bathroom. She finally finished and was off like a shot. Ran to the toilet and started peeing in the hat (that’s the creative name they use for the urine collection device in the toilet, because it looks like – you guessed it – a hat).
After 30 seconds or so she asked, “Are you doing okay in there?” “Yes,” I replied, “Still peeing!”
When I finished and triumphantly left the bathroom I had almost filled the hat. SIX HUNDRED CCS OF FLUID. Double what she had put into me and 50ccs over the supposed “maximum” a human bladder can hold! Within the hour I was back in the bathroom peeing another 300ccs!
Takeaways:
- Something was definitely up with my catheter.
- I am a champion pee-er.
- I would like my extraordinary bladder control and capacity acknowledged and rewarded. Thank you.
complikated 