By now I was more awake and less drugged and was able to
greet and remember visitors. Tamara and
Stephen had been due to come up on Sunday, but Renee phoned on Saturday evening
and told them what had happened and to not come up, because there was no way to
get them to the cabin and no place to stay in Kamloops. Tamara was very upset by this as she had
already purchased their Greyhound tickets.
Unfortunately, they went unused, but I later gave her the money for the
unused ticket.
Karl and Lizeth were going to continue with their plans to
go up to the cabin and agreed to bring Tamara and Stephen with them. They did so and on Wednesday afternoon,
Tamara, Stephen, Karl and Lizeth stopped in to see me. It was a welcome sight to see all of them. I was confined to the bed because I had tubes
running in and out of me all over the place.
Not too mention the pain in my shoulder keeping me pretty much immobile. After a long visit, they all departed and
headed up to the cabin.
I had an oxygen tube in my nose, I had an IV in my left arm
and in the back of my left hand. I had
another in my right hand. My left hand
was pretty much useless at this point and I could not even bend my fingers. I was making out well with just my right
hand. Until it was rendered useless as
well, so I was now helpless. So much so,
that I couldn’t even use the urinals that they provide you with, and I used
those a lot. Between the IV’s and the 4
or 5 liters of water I was drinking every day, it had to go somewhere.
That’s when the fateful decision to introduce me to Mr.
Foley was made. Of all the tubes I had,
this was by far the worst. I wish they
had done it to me when I was unconscious.
A Foley, is a catheter for those not in the know. It consists of a large bag and a tube the
diameter of a garden hose, or at least that’s what it felt like. They shove this thing in the end of my penis
and into my bladder. Except, they couldn’t
get it in. It took 10 different tries,
with 10 different nurses before they finally achieved success.
That son of a bitch hurt like hell. I’m sorry for the language, but it did. On the bright side, I joked around with the
kids saying, hey I may have a tube in there, but I had 10 nurses playing with
my willy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in a
good way. The Foley is designed to empty
your bladder on a constant basis, so you don’t have to worry about trying to
use a bedside urinal.
The pain of it going in was nothing compared to what
followed. Every so often, I would have
to pee, or so I thought. In fact, it was
happening all the time, except my bladder would go into spasm and I felt like I
was giving birth, through that tiny little opening. When it would happen, I would just say that I
was peeing. Except, I wasn’t, and the
Doctor finally explained how it worked and what was happening with the spasms.
The days went by and I had a visit from Glenda and Ron
again. They live in Kamloops and are our
next-door neighbours at the cabin. Apparently,
I looked a little more alive than when they first saw me, and we had a long
visit. It was so nice of them to take
the time to come and see me. They live
in Kamloops are battling their own problems but still came to see me.
On another day another cabin neighbour who lives in Kamloops
came to see me. Clive, whose cabin is on
the other side of Glenda’s cabin, is a retired Kamloops Fire Captain, and over
the years we have kibitzed back and forth.
He was fond of saying, “they issued you a gun and gave me a pillow”. Clive was there for a couple of hours just
chatting and it was a welcome relief to the boredom of my lengthy stay. I had no idea this was just the beginning.
Finally, I got a visit from Perry and Teri. More cabin neighbours. We always meet up and help each other out at
the cabin and they had been due to arrive the same day as Renee, except they
didn’t. I finally phoned to make sure
they were ok. They had been delayed, but
finally arrived on Sunday, only to discover that I was nowhere to be found, as
I had been taken to hospital the night before.
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