Foley Catheter

 Sometimes you know the language, but until you experience the procedure, the words don't begin to express what you are about to encounter.  

A Catheter is a device you might know about.  You may have even seen a television commercial for self-lubricating catheters with happy, smiling actors.  Remember, they’re being paid to act happy, something you won’t be when you experience the catheter up close and personally.

A catheter is a tube that goes up your urethra directly into the bladder to drain it.  While putting it in was awful.  Removing it was even worse.  Most catheters are kept in place by a tiny inflated balloon that expands in your urethra. 

The first time I had a catheter, Nurse Sunshine used a different type of catheter, one that used a screw type mechanism to keep it in place.  When nurse Dana came in to remove it.  She tried to deflate the balloon – but there was no balloon.  She decided that the only way to get it out of me was just to pull it out.  She pulled and she pulled and she pulled. I howled and I howled and I howled. Finally, she placed her left hand on my pubic bone and grabbed the catheter with her right hand. She gave one hard and fast jerk like starting a lawn mower and the catheter came out. “Dana, you broke my Penis,” I whimpered.

 “But we got the catheter out and it drained your bladder, " she said,” You’ll be feeling better in no time. “

“I don’t think so” I squeaked.

ERIC BARR taught acting and directing at University of California, Riverside.  He was the Founding Director of the UCR Palm Desert MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts.

 

Barr has written in a number of different genres, from screenplays to poetry.  His work has appeared in Connotation Press and The Journal of Radical wonder. He was a co-writer on the feature film, A Thousand Cuts.

 

In addition to his writing, Barr worked as a theatre director and acting coach.   He was the Artistic Director of the Porthouse Theatre in Cleveland, taught movement for actors at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in Los Angeles, and worked as an acting coach with the National Theatre of the Deaf. 

 

Since surviving a series of strokes Barr has written and performed his one-man show, A Piece Of My Mind”, about his surgeries, hospitalizations, and rehab ,, around the country,  His podcasts on stroke recovery can be found at http/www.apieceofmymind.net