On Tuesday I had another appointment at Urology, in our local hospital. Turns out my case is well known in the team there! The staff recognise me now and this is how it went…..
My time at hospital was in two halves. First of all I was scheduled to have an ultrasound scan of my urinary tract. My consultant suspects there is a blockage in the tube connecting a kidney to the bladder. This has surfaced before as a concern and maybe now he’s wanting to get it sorted. I too would like to get this sorted one way or another…. back in November I was lying on the operating table, feeling drowsy and connected to tubes and wires when they asked me to sign a consent form to fit a stent. In the end, they decided not to do it but it still seems to be lurking there.
So, firstly in the Imaging Department. Happily the radiographer didn’t mind chatting as she did her stuff. During the scan she said the tubes looked okay and tried to show me on the fuzzy screen, I had to take her word for it as I didn’t really understand the images that well. My kidneys are apparently different shapes and one is 1cm bigger than the other.
At various points she asked me to breathe in and hold my breath, other times to breathe out and stop breathing. Almost inevitably she forgot to tell me I could breathe again – it was only when I said I couldn’t hold on without breath much longer that she laughed and apologised. It was quite funny!
So with that being okay, I went down to Urology for a flow test, to see how quickly I could pee. This is a pretty undignified thing to do but at least they leave you alone to perform. I’ve seen men before waiting for their flow tests, always looking a bit sheepish. Happily I performed alright and a nurse held an ultrasound probe against me to measure how much urine was left inside me. She was surprised and a tad concerned when I said it would be about 750mls. She said it was nearer 800mls. This was queried and she appeared concerned, so I reassured her of my self catheterisation situation.
In the corridor I was spotted by the senior specialist nurse, Paula. She was very friendly, knew my name and started to explain my situation to the other nurse. She knew all the details off the top of her head. Paula went on to say my case was unusual and remembered the time when I had been brought in by the Nephrologist and knew I had been admitted to hospital straight away. While that amused me, I’m not too keen on having some notoriety in this way.
The next stage is to see my Urology Consultant who will hopefully discharge me. Mind you, my next appointment is with the Nephrologist later in April, having had my routine appointment brought forward by a month; this is now getting into the renal system life, just as they said would happen.