My Husband Strikes Again!
So yesterday, as the day went on, my catheter began to really hurt me. I couldn't get comfortable or ease the pain. I told my husband over the phone that it was to the point that I felt like my body was saying it needed to come out. I called my urologist's after-hours nurse and explained everything to her. She asked a bunch of questions and she said she would call me back.
During us talking, I mentioned that a home health nurse had been out early that morning, and she informed me that I should have actually called them first instead of the doctor. I apologized. But when I got off the phone, my husband suggested that we just go ahead and call the home health nurses and give them a heads up. They tell me at every visit that I have the 24/7 to call to get them so I called them next.
Things got complicated immediately. I explained what was happening, went over the same basic health questions I just did with the urology nurse, and she said she couldn't do anything without an order. Which I didn't have yet. Just yet, mind you.
A couple minutes later the urology nurse calls and said that she spoke with the urologist on-call, who actually reached out to my doctor, the one who did the surgery, and they said it could come out. She said I have 4 options. First, I could have the Home Health Nurse remove the catheter, Second, I could remove the catheter myself, Third, I could go to the emergency room and have them remove it. Fourth, I could wait until morning and try to get an appointment to go in to have it done. She was going to give me the on-call doctor's name but the Home Health Nurse called and I switched calls. (I messed up and hung up on her the doctors nurse.)
The Home Heath Nurse tells me the earliest they could see me is the next morning and they allow me to go to the emergency room. I try to explain that I just got permission from the doctor who did the surgery, and an on-call doctor, to have it removed and I wanted someone to come out and do it. She kept telling me that they would need an order and I didn't have one in my chart, so they couldn't do anything. I was about to hang up and my husband asked for the phone and spent the next hour or so, going back and forth with the Home Health Nurses.
The urology nurse calls during this time and tells me that she was going to update my chart and that the Home Health Nurse can CALL the doctor and get the verbal order, so it can come out tonight. I thought THIS is what I paid so much money for. That they would come here if I had an urgent issue and KEEP ME OUT OF THE EMERGENCY ROOM. The price difference MATTERS. We explain that we are self pay all the time. Not to mention the dread of getting in and out of the car, and having to sit at weird angles to try to keep pressure from one area in my lower area. There would be this crazy wait. More phone calls to get more approvals. Higher bills. Omg!
But my husband went to bat. He assured me that the catheter was going to come out tonight. I told him I'd do it myself because I really felt it was digging into me and it was wrong. It needed to come out. I was/am sure of it. It felt like it was doing damage. For some reason, the Home Health Nurse place would not call to get a verbal order. My husband get on with a manager and she is saying that they can not do anything without the order and my husband is insisting that they call. And for some reason they were reluctant to do that.
My chart finally updates, and they call my husband back and then say they didn't have any nurses that could come out and my husband proceed to go around in circles again with getting a nurse to me and the issues with using the emergency room for something we are leaning on taking out ourselves. I told my husband to look up how to do it. The nurse from urology said it was as simple as cutting some area and draining out the water from the balloon and then slowly pulling it out. She goes into more detail and I'm not really WANTING to do this but if it's simple enough to be told over the phone, we should be able to handle it.
Finally my husband gets a call from the Home Health Nurse, that said they'd have someone who'd be there in 40 minutes. It was originally going to be a 2 hour wait. So I was relieved. She then tells my husband that she called and got a verbal order and that she would remove the catheter.
I could finally start to breathe again. He was amazing. His ability to stand up for me and listen to me is beyond words almost. When I told him that I felt like my body was saying to get it out, he knew to believe me.
When the nurse gets there she says upfront that she wasn't comfortable removing it really because she didn't understand the surgery that was done and what was done. My husband looks at her straight in the face and says, "Well, let me tell you what was done. They originally went in there thing her bladder was really damaged. But the ileostomy had done it's job, and the area got a break and a chance to heal. The hole was much smaller than originally viewed in the office. So the repair was simple and basic. A stitch or two, on the outside of the bladder. The bowel was the issues in the surgery. PLUS, we have permission from the DOCTOR WHO DID THE SURGERY, himself!!!
And to her credit, we'll call her Joy, she sat down and 15 seconds later had the catheter out. Instantly felt better, but still had pain. Joy said that she saw a flaw in the plastic and she thought that it might have been what was digging into me. It wasn't a very big area so compared to what I felt, it was growing worse.
She called the next day to check up on me and said it was "ribbed" in that connector area and it was probably what caused the pain. She was glad to be able to remove it. The doctors office called to check on my as well.
I have felt better and better and it's thanks to my husband and fighting for me. I am forever his biggest fan. He has my heart and every thing else.
When she came in, it was the nurse who had come out to see me
