FOLEY MARY MOTHEROFGOD

 

I woke up from my nap this afternoon with a horrible sensation of wet sheets beneath me. I realized somehow my Foley catheter had failed, and urine was flowing into the bed instead of down the tube. I called the nursing service at 4:45 pm on Friday of the Thanksgiving weekend and of course got a call sorter, not a nurse. She promised to relay on my message.

When Debra arrived, she had a look and said she thought the Foley had somehow come out. She was wrong in that assessment. I waited an hour, unable to clean up or change the linen because urine was still flowing out periodically. I did stop drinking anything. Then Lettie arrived, who was my home nurse last year, competent and familiar, though not as adept as Jessica.

Lettie's investigation showed the Foley was still seated but had apparently become plugged by sediment, possibly from the recent UTI. She removed it and we began setting up for a procedure. I said to Debra "You need to shut Scout in the other room", because she was already eyeing the intoxicatingly rustling sterile packs the nurse was pulling out. Scout instantly vanished under my bed, indicating she has more vocabulary than we realized. Her own curiosity undid her, however, two minutes later when she sprang out to pounce on the new tube and Debra nabbed her.

The insertion hurt more than usual, and Lettie couldn't get flow right away to be sure it was in the right place. I drank down a bottle of water and within a few minutes urine began trickling into the tube. There was also a lot of blood at first, indicating Lettie had scraped me a little. She had trouble "finding the right hole", as she put it.

She inflated the bulb that locks everything down, washed her hands and zoomed off, leaving Debra to put everything away, then clean me up and redo the bed. I finally ate dinner an hour late but giddy with relief. I took a pain pill and answered Margot's skype, probably our last before she gets here six days from now. The family wedding she is attending in Florida will likely take up all her spare time before then. Famine before the feast.

As we were chatting, Scout came to cuddle and pose for pictures. Abruptly she wheeled and bit me hard enough on the nose to draw a stream of blood. Margot managed to grab a shot as Scout streaked away. Payback, I suppose, for denying her a box seat at the Foley Show.