Last Summer.

Last summer I was living and enjoying my life. Working at a job I enjoyed, and being well paid. There was a drawback with this job however, which I will get to later. I was just content with my state of health, never in my life having any major issues. Never had been a patient in hospital.

   I was happy enough, having a few alcoholic drinks a week, and plenty of junk food. But also trying to keep it healthy, food wise, when I could be bothered.

       My sex life was okay, but also included some anal play, which I believe was the start of my troubles.

        After indulging in the latter, I woke up the next day, and found when I urinated it strung, a stinging irritation. Not something I had ever encountered before.

  Left it for a day or two, then contacted the Doctor by phone, who prescribed some antibiotic, Plexay, or something like that. A six day course, which I completed, but was not feeling much better. In fact feeling a lot worse.

  Mainly unable to urinate at all, by this stage, and when I did manage to urinate what came out of the urine channel, was red, mucky gunk, and my groin seemed very sick to look at.

         To leave my room and go down the one flight of stairs, to get some fresh water, seemed like one of the hardest journeys of my life. I was gripping the wall as I staggered down, and verbally encouraging myself.

                                                        Having retrieved some fresh water, I was faced with the ordeal of returning upstairs to my bedroom. Not a prospect I relished, but had to be done, and I did so. Being unable to urinate by this stage, and my belly feeling very full, a retired nurse of my acquaintance phoned and insisted I call an ambulance straight away.

              I was very hesitant to do so, as I did not believe I was very unwell, and did not feel that unwell, with an obvious headache, or stomach ache. I did not really want to bother hospital emergency staff unless it was a really serious issue. I did call for an ambulance shortly afterward under protest, and an ambulance, and a second paramedic car pulled up to the house.

                                       Out tumbled five paramedics, advanced paramedics, and one or two trainees, with all their medical gear. I was sitting on a chair on the landing at this stage, after some consultation between the paramedics next thing I was been carried down the stairs in a wheelchair, and taken into the back of the ambulance. All rather surprising to myself.

               The journey to the emergency department seemed to take forever, even though it was only a thirty minute stroll down the road. Why were there no sirens, 

 I wanted to ask, are the blues lights flashing, I also wanted to know, just for the record……But I never asked, it just didn’t seem appropriate, somehow.

                     In there I was given Ketamine, among other drugs, and taken into the emergency dept. A catheter was inserted, didn’t feel it, thanks to the drugs I had been given. A high dependency unit was considered, by the medical staff as I ended up with eGFR of 4%, severe AKI,(Acute Kidney Injury),  Uroseppis,  severe urinary retention, and was offered the services of a Priest. Never a good sign !

      During my two months as a hospital patient, as I recovered, with nephrostomy’s were inserted  in both kidneys. Main causes, BHP (Enlarged Prostate) and toxic chemicals permeating the air next to my place of employment in the heavy industrial area of the local port. After much reading I now understand the medical and environmental issues that caused my AKI(Acute Kidney Injury).

                   I have had the nephrostomys in place for nearly nine months, and at this stage I am sick of the sight of them. Feeling like  Frankinstein’s monster. What woman would find that attractive, or acceptable when it comes to frolicking between the sheets. They are just very unwelcome encumbrances now. 

                      Had a cystoscopy last month. That was an interesting afternoon ! I went from initially refusing to have it done, the very idea, to desperately wanting it done as soon as possible.It was not at all as brutal as portrayed by the comments on the YouTube videos. It at least put my mind at rest, what with all the publicity regarding Charles, head of the English royal family and his cancer diagnosis, it was a relief to get it done, and to find out what was happening there. An enlarged prostate was confirmed as the main source of my troubles.

                    At my follow appointment after my discharge I was quite excited, to at last be getting rid of these ugly tubes and especially the urine bags.

The Professor’s manner was somber, when I entered his small grey office, although he did shake my hand. I had continually and resolutely refused a ’Turp’ procedure which the medical staff had consistently suggested I have, during my hospital stay.

Not too long into the conversation the Professor shifted away from scanning my test results onscreen, and looked me in the eye.

‘It’s only a matter of time before you’re back in here with us, on dialysis, possibly a transplant’.

This now was not at all what I was expecting, nor hoping for.

It’s only a matter of time,’ the professor reiterated.

   I had heard him the first time, and did not need a second remainder. I never particularly liked the man, with his sour demeanor, even less so now.

‘How are you getting on with the tubes in your kidneys’, he ventured.

 ‘I would quiet like to have the tubes removed from my kidneys now,’ I returned.

  ‘Well he said, if you learn intermittent catheterization, we can do that. Let me call one of the urology nurses to show you how to do that.’

    An appointment was arranged for the following week, with the urology nurse, unfortunately it was not the nurse I had met in the Professor’s office the previous week, as I quiet fancied her, and would have no objection to her manipulating my groin.

       Instead I was greeted at my appointment by a not very pleasant nurse in her thirties, and had a strong feeling the meeting was not going to go well, and it didn’t ! We chatted, and then she studied my medical notes on her computer screen,

‘Your creatinine level reached 3000’.

I said nothing, but knew she lied, God only knows why. Having read all my medical reports, and everything to do with my hospital stay, I knew the truth. My creatinine was 1025 at its highest. Still high enough and concerning. I don’t like being lied to, who does.

This set the rather negative, unpleasant tone for the meeting. She then proceeded to the cabinet and retrieved a rigid  like stick device, with an arrow like tip, approx twelve inches in length, and explained that I  was to be insert this stick into my urinary channel three to four times a day, and I was to prod my bladder with the said stick, to release the urine. The very idea !

             That certainly knocked the wind out of my sails. However, having quickly regained my composure I firmly assured her I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of carrying out such a sadistic maneuver, not only once, but up to four times a day. 

                                    I briefly contemplated the sadist who ever came up with such an idea in the first place, and concluded his mind must indeed be very warped, and sick.

‘No, I am certainly not doing that’.

‘Well then your wasting my time here’, she responded coldly.

I left her office shortly after, and was glad to get away from her, and her mad ideas. as she wrote up her notes for the Professor. I considered how a woman who acts like such a bitch, pursues a position in a healing institution, such as a hospital. To that question, I am still at a loss.

As it stands I still have both nephrostomy’s, and stage 3B kidney disease and am trying to heal myself by complementary methods, non inflammatory foods, trying reflexology currently, as I don’t fancy any operation, so will have to see how we go.

                               But I am hopeful as I see many others have recovered from kidney disease, and managed to reduce prostate size. 

                                                                                That was my summer last year..

                                                                                                                            06-04-2024.

The Beach.

Photo Credit : https://unsplash.com/@venegas?photo=OhIfU2AczOg

She had threatened long enough, although no one had believed her. Just a call for attention. Nothing more, nothing less. they had decided. An old womans empty, and at times, humorous threats.
But obviously beneath the humour, there was hurt, and distress. No one had bothered to investigate. Everyone busy with their own lives. There careers, children, and business. Had someone actually taken the damn time to sit down with her, and sincerely ask her, what life was like for her. Had they show  more consideration and kindness, and maybe spent more time with an old lonely woman, life would have turned out differently. Perhaps many would have spent more time with her, aside from the one solidary visit a week, for the Sunday lunch. Nobody considering how the rest of the week was for her.
It was of course, too late now. The chance had disappeared. She lived for the weekends, and the once weekly visit from her children, and newly born grandchildren. Laughter and energy and happy voices once filled her household, just as it had been, when her own children were grown up. But there were always strains between her and her grown up, and now adult children. Did they really like each other , as people. Would they actually want to spend time in each other’s company, were they not related.

Some had taken sides, when the separation from her husband was first enacted, and then the divorce. Allegations and counter allegations flew between the two parties, and none of it pretty. Lies, distrust, and anger followed. Made up stories of abuse, and cruelty that may, or may not have had a grain of truth in them. Loyalty and kindness to her children, soon forgotten and dismissed by them, as they took the side of her husband.

The final straw for her, was the cessation of contact with her children, who were convinced by her husband, that she was the villain in all of this. That and the denial of access to her grandchildren, that she had helped care for, soon after they were born. No viable reasons given. All the love, kindness, and generosity she had shown them, and their Mother, her daughter, throughout the years. Amounted to nothing, it seemed. Kindness granted, soon forgotten.

It was that dull overcast November afternoon, that she headed to the isolated beach alone. With the tablets to hand, and a last small bottle of whiskey to encourage her bravery, she laid her reading glasses in the sand, and headed towards the ocean, and into the cold, uninviting waves. The mixture of the tablets and whiskey having the desired effect. As she stumbled and swayed, as she walked toward the sea. Her vision blurred slightly, and  feeling quiet light-headed. As a non swimmer she struggled and panicked at first, as the powerful waves, did with her as they wished. The whiskey and tablets helped to quell her rising fears, somewhat. The waves, and weight of her own clothing soon pulled her out and down, to the ocean bed, where she waited for God to take her.
In the cold, dark church, the priest stood at the lectern, gazing upon the congregation of mourners. Having conducted most of the formal ceremony, he could no longer hold himself back. Behind him the magnificent altar, towering upward. To him, they were nothing but hypocrites. He was well aware of the family history, having had been closely and connected to them for years. From births to marriages, to baptisms and confessions. He had heard and seen it all. They were here in this place of worship now to mourn her, with their crocodile tears, and false sadness.

The priest gripped both ends of the lectern tightly. His face thunder red, and perspiring. ‘What does it mean, to mourn someone when they have died. It means very little when you showed them little kindness or understanding when they were alive”. He spoke slowly and loudly. The anger and frustration plainly obvious in his tone. Her children shifted uncomfortably in their seats, as did her former husband. One or two loosening their shirts collars. The females fanning themselves with whatever was to hand. One or two members of her family gazed quietly at the floor.
‘I have very little time for hypocrites like you people, I want you to leave this church now. Get out of my sight. I am sick of the lot of you. Go, and may God have mercy on your black souls. Get out, go’, his voice rising to a crescendo. His booming voice reverberating throughout the silent church. The congregation left the church as directed, for the most part, with their heads held low. In the sacristy as the priest changed from the formal clothing of the funeral mass, he gazed out onto the cold uninviting waves of the ocean, under the dull grey November sky.

Written in response to a writing prompt seen here : http://creativewriting.ie/writing-prompts/