As everyone knows I've been dealing with bladder issues but what everyone doesn't know exactly how bad it's been. So I'm going to start from the beginning but not go into great detail until the end. When my accident happened I was cathing or technically being cathed every two to four hours a day. It took about forty five minutes to cath me because of my spasticity. I hated it! It felt like just about the time I got done with cathing and settled down I had to do it all over again. So I started to use a foley full time which gave me the independence I wanted but what I didn't know was that the constant foley use was destroying my urethra.
The urethra is the tube that carries the urine from the bladder to its exit point. It's a very small tube but when you use a foley over a long period of time the foley tube starts to stretch it and the urethra starts to loose the ability to shrink too. So eventually you'll have to move up in size of the catheter because you'll start to having bladder leakage which has a lot of consequences.
I'm here to share with you the consequences I'm facing because of my prolonged use of the Foley catheter. My urethra had become so large that the male doctor could stick his hole index finger into my urethra. The normal urethra should only be the size of a 8 fr catheter. I asked if there was a catheter size that I could go to in order to stop the leakage to protect my skin. There's 6 fr to 40 fr and there's nothing that is as large as my urethra has stretched.
The leaking means that I smell like pee all the time. My clothes are always nasty. My chair gets wets when I leak which will cause uncovered damage to my chair over time. I don't want to leave my house because of the urine smell. I don't want to be around people because they can smell horrible.
I'm starting to feel the depression that I've been fighting since my injury happened starting to take over my mind once again. I'm fighting a war with my own mind. I have to keep reminding myself that in a few weeks it will be over and this won't be happening anymore. I'll be able to go out and have my life again. I'll be able to learn to drive and do everything else that this leaking has taken from me.
I have to keep fighting this war.
The urethra is the tube that carries the urine from the bladder to its exit point. It's a very small tube but when you use a foley over a long period of time the foley tube starts to stretch it and the urethra starts to loose the ability to shrink too. So eventually you'll have to move up in size of the catheter because you'll start to having bladder leakage which has a lot of consequences.
I'm here to share with you the consequences I'm facing because of my prolonged use of the Foley catheter. My urethra had become so large that the male doctor could stick his hole index finger into my urethra. The normal urethra should only be the size of a 8 fr catheter. I asked if there was a catheter size that I could go to in order to stop the leakage to protect my skin. There's 6 fr to 40 fr and there's nothing that is as large as my urethra has stretched.
The leaking means that I smell like pee all the time. My clothes are always nasty. My chair gets wets when I leak which will cause uncovered damage to my chair over time. I don't want to leave my house because of the urine smell. I don't want to be around people because they can smell horrible.
I'm starting to feel the depression that I've been fighting since my injury happened starting to take over my mind once again. I'm fighting a war with my own mind. I have to keep reminding myself that in a few weeks it will be over and this won't be happening anymore. I'll be able to go out and have my life again. I'll be able to learn to drive and do everything else that this leaking has taken from me.
I have to keep fighting this war.
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