Stented Love

Hello dear chums around our parochial electronic global village, time I think to update you all on recent developments. This week has seen a few firsts in this new non diabetic state of being, I have for the first time ever had a sugary pudding after dinner, bread and butter to be exact, and have chomped freely on a Cadbury's Picnic, as well as eating copious amounts of Burger Rings and Cheezels, without a care for my blood sugars! I almost drank some normal Coca Cola, but though better of it, more from a sense of moral outrage over my willingness  to buy into the corporate marketing of the evil drinks giant, than any care for my new pancreas. I am relishing daily the rather pleasant and after 3 years of little use, the wonderful forgotten sensation of having "an urge to pee", and the resultant sense of relief and disturbingly pleasant sensation that develops! That will sound very odd, I admit, but it really is a great feeling!
Am slowly feeling less pain from the operation site and my wound is beginning to heel steadily, but still looks like Jack the Ripper has had a wee go at my abdomen.

Now please allow me to explain the title of today's entry and it's relevance. During my recent operation the surgeon places a thin bypass tube within the ureter to allow the new kidney to pass urine to the bladder, without inflaming the natural passageway, to protect it from what is quite traumatic physical surgery. This is known as a stent.

This lasts for a period of 4 weeks and then it is removed, (is it really just 4 short weeks ago I was on dialysis three times a week and monitoring my sugars?)
Obviously I have been slightly perturbed by the up and coming stent removal procedure because there is only one way out of the ureter, down through the bladder and out through the end of my wee willy winkie. Ouch!! To make matters worse my adorable transplant coordinator, who is overseeing my recovery, has been plying games with my mind by telling me that the procedure, although brief in its duration, is akin to childbirth. Yikes, I thought, this sounds mighty unpleasant, and not really something I want to contemplate. To make matters worse, I decided to google "stent" and became increasingly horrified at the size of the blasted thing, about a foot long!!! And that has to exit through my tilly tackle.....Witness this actual example Xray and prepare to join me on the floor in a dead faint......

 

So all day I have been feeling anxious and not a little overwhelmed by the joys to come later at the clinic, even right up until the moment that I was greeted by the very kind nurse at the reception, and shown through to the procedure room.

I undressed and was draped in a towel, presumable not for modesty, given the intimate nature of the meeting, but to mop up any fluids exiting? The Dr then inserted a brief squeeze of local anaesthetic and then proceeded to caress my member in order to work the anaesthetic into the affected area and bladder. And then it happened, part one of the most unpleasant searing pain imaginable, internally within my very core! As the cystoscope was pushed through into my bladder, it met resistance, just like the French. However unlike Renee and his 'Allo 'Allo comrades this was no laughing matter as the pain was quite severe albeit brief and fleeting. After the initial shock and pain, I was however, fascinated by the cystocopy which was broadcast on a small TV monitor, allowing the surgeon and me to see inside my own ureter. It really did look like something from David Attenborough's oceanic explorations, with perhaps less dolphins; a magnified and swirling world of internal lining set amidst a jelly like mass of membrane, with the end of the stent lying on the sea floor like a tired sea snake. The surgeon then proceeded to grab the end of the stent and I was told to breathe in deeply and then exhale. 

Little did I realise that this was part of their great deception and that actually the first pain of the bladder entry was not the last. As I exhaled, the stent was abruptly pulled out through the bladder and the end of my penis. Ouch! It was again a brief  but searing pain, that did indeed last for about 10 seconds as it travelled through the bladder and my uereter. Did I mention the pain? I was then asked whether I wanted to keep it, which topped off the moment for me, and I was left in a fit of giggles.

I swiftly exited stage right in somewhat of a hurry to get out of there,and on reflection, although probably nothing like childbirth it is not something I would want to undergo again.  By the way did I mention the pain??

To paraphrase the lyrics of the marvellous Soft Cell from 1981...

" Sometimes I feel I've got to
  Run away I've got to
  Get away
  From the pain that you drive into the heart of me

  This internal tube you've given
  I give you all a patient could give you
  Take my tears and that's not nearly all
  Oh...Stented love
  Stented love........