I went to bed last night not caring who won the election.
I woke up a few hours later still not caring, but less so because I couldn’t pee.
Now, I’ve been having this problem often on for 3 to 6 months, maybe 12 months, who can remember, but I had learned that if I just hung in there and walked around the house for a few minutes that the urine would flow.
But it didn’t.
So, with nothing else better to do I took some documents from my house over to the office to do some early morning scanning.
Ahh, there’s nothing like scanning documents into a Fujitsu scanner to get your urine flow going.
But the urine was not forthcoming.
Shit!
You know, I knew this day was coming sooner or later. I’m 65 now, no spring chicken, and so it was about time that my prostate started getting too big to not fail.
But, you know, you always figure that if you ignore the problem that it might go away.
Well, the time had come to pay the piper.
So, around 4 AM I returned to my house, picked up my Medicare card, and drove myself over to the hospital.
I walked through Checkpoint Charlie where they issued me a mask, then strode confidently into the registration area like I owned the place.
What’s going on, they asked.
I can’t urinate, I replied. I think I need somebody to cath me.
They took me in right away and measured my vitals. My blood pressure was high, 200 and some over 108.
Most likely that was a reflection of the discomfort I was in.
I was dying to take a piss.
After escorting me to my bay, the doctor came in and was very nice. I told him what was going on, and he agreed that I probably needed a cath.
Have you ever had one, he asked.
No, I said, but I knew this day was coming. And I know it can’t feel too good.
He told me that they would try to make it comfortable for me.
A short while later an orderly, well, we used to call him orderlies, appeared and asked me if I knew what was going to happen.
I said, yes, I used to do this when I was about your age back in the day. I used to help the urologists when I worked in the emergency room.
He told me what it would feel like, and I told him, well, I’m a connoisseur of pain. This will be just another type of pain that I have experienced in my life.
And with that, he put the catheter in.
I must say, it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. It was certainly nothing like the pain I had when I ripped my paraspinous muscles. Nor, was it like the pain when I broke my right fibula, or when I had a bilateral hernia operation.
It was even less than a migraine.
Maybe I was so relieved to get that urine out of my friggin bladder.
The tech told me that his record for draining a bladder was 1500 ML’s.
I think it’s fair to say that I smashed that record. He drained 1700 ML’s out of me.
It was actually a sublime experience, not only because he relieved my pain, but because for one hour I didn’t think once about the presidential election.
I couldn’t have cared less.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump were not part of my consciousness.
Sincerely,
Archer Crosley
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Cowboy Archer 