Another blockage today. Thankfully the nurses came out quite quickly. I guess I waited about 2.5 hours. I asked them to change it this time as it is due next week anyway. Wish I'd have insisted on that 9 days ago when it last blocked!!! These are my first actual blockages. All the other times in this thread were my internal sphincter blocking the eyelets rather than the catheter itself becoming blocked. I have signs of an infection. Smelly urine, extra sediment (hence the blockage), soreness in bladder and urethra, feeling unwell - but in this area they won't give antibiotics unless you have a fever and my body never responds with one. I guess I will try and keep fluids up + drink Chamomile tea and d mannose which binds to ecoli (if it is even that!). I take cranberry tablets anyway.
It concerns me that the nurses were not so sterile today. She did not wash her hands before putting on the sterile gloves after coming in to my property. She only cleaned around my urethra after I asked if she was going to, and she initially put the catheter down on my opened out wet pad, then wiped it with a sterile bit of gauze which may have been wet. They washed their hands afterwards though. They were also a bit rude at first just walking in and staring at me not saying hello until I had said it several times. Perhaps they were confused as I am a transgender man I don't know. There was no surprise about my genital configuration and I could tell by the discussion about catheter length ("is that the male length catheter?" "yes why, do you prefer the shorter one?" - if they had thought I had a penis then a shorter catheter would have been an unsafe suggestion.
Still I thanked them for changing it promptly on Sunday at midnight and am now just waiting for my bladder, bowels and general spasms to calm down a bit. I've put a larger (but not that absorbant) pad on just in case - which I don't usually need unless my catheter is playing up. I'm shattered after hours of personal care. Bedpan, clothes back on, soak clothes and bed, change bed, change pad, change tshirt, catheter change, change pad, clothes back on, bedding on etc etc.
The small mercy in this is that now I won't have to have my catheter changed on Friday because it's already done.
|