Lawyers Harrogate

I have a catheterisation story… here in the UK it’s standard with male catheterisations to inject most of a pre-loaded 10ml syringe of lidocaine gel into the urethral meatus prior to cathing the patient, to serve as both lubrication and anaesthetic. You then wait a couple of minutes for the anaesthetic effect to kick in (unless the patient is in acute retention and is begging you just to hurry up and shove it in).

When I first learned how to cath a male when I was a third year med student, some of the more unkind doctors decided to teach their female med students that having injected the lidocaine, you then had to ‘massage it down’ with both hands around the penis… with predictable consequences in at least some of the younger patients. I wasn’t caught out by this myself, but a few of my more naive colleagues did it several times before they realised their mistake.

I’ll never forget my first male catheterisation, for different reasons. I’m not sure how much US doctors will be able to relate to this, as I know most US men are circumsised, but in the UK it’s relatively uncommon. So before you do a cath, in order to maintain sterility, you have to gently draw the foreskin back and clean the glans of the penis. It’s very dependent on the gentleman’s personal hygiene how unpleasant this task is, but I’ve never since encountered what I saw on my first ever attempt…. (look away now if you’re squeamish)…. great white plaques of dead skin and general gunk, the size of two pence pieces. He was an old guy with obvious signs of self-neglect and it was clear that no-one had been behind that foreskin for a very long time.

Two days after surgery, I was cleared to be moved out of neuro intensive care and into a private room for futher recovery/observation. I didn’t need a catheter for the private room, so it was pulled out. All I can say is OUCH! It hurt like heck for a few seconds after being yanked out.

But that pain was nothing compared to the urinary tract infection I got two weeks later. Because I had recent brain surgery, I wasn’t allowed to drive. So I had to call an ambulance to take me into hospital emergency. (A different hospital than where I had the brain surgery.)

Five days after the surgery, I was discharged from the hospital, but then immediately admited to a rehabilitation facility. I needed some time to recover some of my mental capablilities. While in the rehab facility, an old retired man I shared a room with needed a catheter to releive his bladder. He wasn’t able to go to the bathroom on his own (for several days I overheard from the nurse.) So the nurse had to insert a certain kind of catheter than was used once (to immediately relieve the bladder) and then removed. The whole procedure took about 20 minutes or so. I didn’t watch, but I could hear. Oh man, that was horrible. The guy was crying – he was in his late 70s.