Perhaps the worst 24 hours of my life

 I am a cancer survivor.

I had prostate cancer over 10 years ago and had it removed after talking to a female consultant in NYC. I asked her what she would tell me if I were her brother and she said, "yank it out!"

She also recommended a surgeon in Greenwich, so I had my surgery at Greenwich hospital--which is more like a luxury hotel than a hospital--meals from menus, not able to see the door of another room from the door of your room, a pianist playing for hours in the big room on the first floor that floated through the rooms above.

But my radiology after surgery, done in Waterbury every week day for a week, scared my bladder. So, every month I have two peas with a little blood and my urologist tells me that's perfectly normal.

However, yesterday (Tuesday) was different.

I did my zoom group and went to Waterbury Hospital to get my two Zolair shots I get every other week. (Zolair, by the way, is a wonder drug. It has ridden me of asthma attacks and most asthma symptoms!)

But when I got home, I had a pee that was mostly blood.

And then again.

And again.

Finally, it became a trickle of blood only and I had to go do it ever 15 minutes.

So, I went to the Emergency room. Bern took me though I planned to go by myself. Lucky that she did because I started having severe pains in my bladder half-the-way there.

We waited in a very busy waiting room for almost three hours before they called me.

They tried to insert two different catheters with no success and then called the urologist on call. It took him over an hour to come.

He put a camera up my penis and found a constriction of the urinary track.To open it, he started with a wire into my bladder and then a series of larger and larger tubes on the wire until he opened it up for the catheter.

Amazing amount of pair for almost an hour!!!

A wire up your penis...imagine....

But the catheter ended the pain.

Bern went home after 12:30 a.m.

He saw me twice this morning and after deciding I could go home with the catheter at 10:30, I called Bern to bring me jeans and underwear since the ones I had were soaked in blood.

It was another 5 1/2 hours before the order was finally accepted, my IV was removed and I came home with a leg bag and an overnight bag.

Almost 24 hours in pain and waiting.

The nurses were great though.

Meanwhile, Brigit, our dog had been in the Vet hospital having a growth removed and her teeth cleaned while she was asleep.

She is not happy. We picked her up at 5 p.m. and it's 9:30 now and she's restless and whiny and obviously in pain.

The two of us are a mess.

Maybe the worst 24 hours of my life....