esrosedotblog

AWOL

I have been very sick for the past week.

The blog came second and third and often not at all.

I had a lot of pain in the abdomen a week ago Monday and went to the local, right up the street, Urgent Care, a new facility just made for this kind of situation.

I thought I might have appendicitis but they told me that could not be the case as I would not have been able to drive there and would be in acute pain.

But I had pain enough.

The doc pummeled me around and identified a problem with my bladder. Tight as a drum.

They have the facilities of a small modern hospital there and it was easy to get a cat scan to see what was going on.

I had what one doc would later describe as a "horribly" distended bladder.

I have evidently had this for some time. Slow urine flow backs the bladder up and the result is distension.

It is common among, ahem, old guys who have a history of peeing problems, in my case, probably, the result of past years' radiation and slowdown. My prostate while "dead" is enlarged apparently.

So.

They put in a catheter and drained it. I lost a lot of water.

They can't move too quickly as there can be spasming of the bladder and something not good for the kidneys. So they left the catheter in.

That night, being tired out from six hours in the urgent care, we went out to dinner and when I came home I lost it all. No one told me not to eat.

So I didn't for a few days.

And I was sick as a dog. My abdomen missed its distension. Adjustments are always difficult.

It took a week to come to a balance point.

Yesterday, I went to the kidney doc I had been seeing and she pretty much acknowledged that my kidneys had been affected by this and that my function tests would have to be redone entirely. End of this week.

She did point out some really good news and that was based on the cat scan there is no other culprit on the scene for the kidney problem. So far. I definitively do not have cancer.

Today is the urologist who I am hoping will take the catheter out, prescribe flo max or something to try and take me on as a client. Patient.

We shall see. I think that I qualify.

I feel a lot better, am eating normally and have a good level of energy.

I have not been back to the gym because I can't really work out, for now, with the tubes in me.

If he takes them/it out today, I will be in the gym, on my bike, in my shorts tomorrow morning.

Even if I just go in and pedal a little bit.

Sorry to have been away. A lot has happened this week.

I don't have a lot to say about it anyway. The gun control bill, the marathon bombing.

I will try to pick up where I left off.

Labels: health, kidney, urology