The CATHETER
After years of abusing my body playing American football and pole vaulting (get your mind out of the gutter) it finally caught up with me. The pathetic part was that it was during a friendly game of touch football (for the un-initiated: you place two hands on the person instead of driving his face into the sod, like tackle football).

All good. No stress. However, I was able to catch the oblong pigskin quite magnificently and there were two people on the other team that did not like this. They had a plan: when I went up for the ball, one would hit me high, one low. Cue mid-air cartwheeling with the resultant crash.

This happened once, and as proof of my manliness (or sheer stupidity), I shook it off and got back at it. Same two people, same crap reaction to their incompetence at being able to guard me.

Well, the next day, I was in a bad way. This persisted and after X-rays and an MRI, they discovered three herniated discs and a – you guessed it, a broken coccyx. Years of pain and therapy followed with assorted nasty pills to try to alleviate the pain.

(are there fast forward wavy lines?)

Some years later, I was feeling better, decided to go biking because the doctors forbade me from running, playing organized sports, having a life, etc. It was a beautiful spring day, and instead of my typical 20-30 minute ride I went for well over an hour. All was fine the next day, but soon, I began to rapidly deteriorate. The pain was incredible! It was as if someone was bathing the area below my belt line with lava. I could get no relief, despite the large amounts of narcotics and muscle relaxants. Plus, its effect on my sciatic caused me to limp like Igor and I would endure all day at work, then in the evenings lie on several frozen gel packs. After some time, I bit the bullet and scheduled back surgery.

It went off without a hitch (I suppose – I was pleasantly unconscious). When I woke up, the sun was shining, I had platefuls of unrecognizable food stuffs that I ate due to sheer hunger, and of course there was Jello. Yay! All was well until the nurse, I shall call her Helga, because although I’m no small man, she outweighed me and looked like she could lift a small car in each arm, with forearms larger than Popeye's. She was extremely kind, however and told me I could leave as soon as I did a wee wee.

So, several times she helped me to the head, and stood there while I tried to make water. Side note: hospital gowns are notoriously immodest, but to have an unfamiliar female watch you struggle with the finer points of urination, can be a bit off-setting.

After a few hours of up and down and no results, she suggested the catheter. I had no experience with this device, but still insisted on doing it the way nature intended. In time, she said we needed to drain the main vein and I was feeling a bit bloated, so I agreed.

Dear reader, this was a gross error in judgment.

She had me lay on my back with my gown around my shoulders while she prepared her equipment. My rooster was clucking about happily, enjoying the fresh air and looking proud and happy to be out of the coop. This joie de vivre was cut short: the clucking went to a panicked squawk as the nurse violently seized him around the head and proceeded to force several yards of tubing down his gullet.

Oh the pain, oh the ignominy, oh my stars, did they buy tubing coated with sandpaper? A woman was grasping my unit and I was in no way enjoying it. The pain, the burning, the bloody thing where nature never intended it to be!!!

It did the job, I was drained, but I now keep very fit to keep the core strong to avoid, at any cost, the CATHETER! (and no whining by the female species: you only have mere inches, not feet like us males do.)
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 18:07, Reply)