The Catheter Story!

I remember back in May of 1993. I'd gotten married a month earlier and things were looking up! We were happy and a friend of ours was having a party. At the time I was 35 years old and I was starting to realize that getting drunk wasn't as much fun as in the old days which was in the 80's! Anyway, we went to this party. I was drinking beer as usual and having a good time. At about 11pm we decided to go home. When we got home my wife (Leslie) went to bed and I decided to stay up and watch some TV. After about 30 minutes of TV I too fell asleep on my couch. When I woke up it was about 12:30am.

I decided to go to bed but first I would have to relieve myself. I was still urinating the normal way and since I'd had about 8 beers at the party my bladder was full and needed to be emptied. However, when I stood in front of my toilet nothing wanted to come out. I stood there a couple of minutes and because I'd been out drinking and sleeping I was a little wobbly so
I decided to sit down. I took a couple of deep breaths to relax because I'd already begun to think that I wasn't going to be able to urinate and then what would I do? I started to get nervous! My bride of just one month was still asleep in the bedroom and I didn't want to wake her up for the reason of not being able to urinate! She was oblivious to all that was happening!

Being a smart man (lol) I said to myself, what is going on here? Panic, thoughts and questions started racing through my mind? If I couldn't pee (that's easier to spell, lol) would my bladder blow up? Can I die from a bladder blowup? Should I wake up Leslie? I'd been having trouble urinating before but never like this! Now I started to panic. I thought that one way to get me to pee would be to use a catheter. I'd never been cathetered before and like most guys I didn't really care for the thought of doing that! But my bladder felt so full like it was going to burst at any second. I'd now been trying to pee about 30 minutes and nary a drop had come out!

It was now about 1am in the morning. I waited 15 more minutes before going in and waking Leslie. She was groggy from sleep but quickly got up and called the emergency room. She was and still is a very smart woman. There was a hospital only five blocks away from where we lived. She called the emergency room and explained the situation to a nurse there. The nurse said I should lay in a tub of cold water first to see if that would wake up my bladder. If that didn't work then we should come in to the emergency room and they could do something. Well, all the tub did was get my butt wet so we decided to go to the emergency room.

After toweling off and putting on my clothes I tried to stand up. My bladder and stomach hurt so badly that I was now doubled up in pain. Leslie went to get our Jeep and pull it up in front of the apartment complex! I was now sitting in our apartment on a chair waiting for Leslie to help me walk to the front door which was a long distance away. We walked arm in arm to our Jeep and very slowly. I crawled into the front seat of our Jeep and just laid there moaning to myself!

I knew the emergency people were going to have to catheter me to get this urine out of my bladder. As I said cathetering was all new to me so there was some apprehension on my part.
When I went into the hospital there was man there to help people with wheelchairs and directions. He asked me if I wanted a wheelchair and I said yes. He was all ready for me to sit down when I said I just want to push the wheelchair so I could keep bent over. By this time I looked liked a 90 year old man with back problems! But the problem was my bladder was full and needed to be emptied!

I checked in at the front desk and in 10 minutes I was being whisked into an emergency room to take care of my problem. They were going to catheter me so I laid down on a table and I still remember what the nurse said to me. He said this might hurt a little! I also remember what I said to him. I said that catheter can't hurt half as bad as I feel right now! And I was right! As soon as the catheter reached my bladder I felt an immediate relief in my bladder/stomach area! By now it was 2am. The nurse had me lay there for almost 2 hours as my bladder was drained.

A doctor later checked on me and said that most people with MS end up cathing all the time. I didn't really believe that and I never had any problems like that night again! My wife and I drove home about 4am that morning! It had been a long night! The next day I returned to peeing normally again. That was fourteen years ago and I still don't know why that happened? Was I having an exacerbation? I'll never know but it was a preview of things to come.

** Just so people don't have the anxiety that I did on my longest night and especially males it doesn't hurt to insert a catheter. If you put some KY Jelly on the end of the catheter it will slide right up your urethra to your bladder. Once it gets to the bladder you want to make sure the other end is in the toilet bowl because you're going to be peeing! lol

Jon Wegner is a 51 year old resident of West Fargo, North Dakota. He's lived in ND for 6 years now after being lifelong Minnesotan. Jon has multiple sclerosis. Although Jon can still drive his mini van he needs an electric scooter and his rollators (walkers) to get around shorter distances.