The Watch
Larry: I shall never forget what brought me down the stairs at 2:30 in the morning to suggest we might need to go to the emergency room.
There are two types of urine bags that are associated with indwelling catheters. One is a bag that is connected to the upper leg by a strap just below the pubic area and one just above the knee. The other is a much larger bag that one would use in the hospital or at home when one is not, frequently, moving around or asleep. Both bags rely upon gravity to drain the bladder of urine. When my catheter was first installed, I was sent home with the leg bag attached and the other bag was given to me to change when appropriate. However, I was uncomfortable with the idea of changing the leg bag due to being a bit fearful of the process, and I also was aware that any time one bag is exchanged for another there is an increased risk of infection.
As a young adult, I had worked for a company as a manufacturer’s representative and sold catheters and bags to medical supply companies, which then sold them to hospitals. Part of my job was to do in-service training for the nursing personnel at the hospitals that purchased our products. I learned from that experience anytime an indwelling catheter is used for an extended period of time, the risk of infection is great. The frequent changing of bags increases that risk even more. Consequently, I opted to keep the leg bag attached while I slept. However, because that bag is so small, it meant I would need to get up several times during the night to empty the bag. But, I was accustomed to getting up in the night to urinate anyway.
The process of keeping the bag below my waist was a simple one. I moved a chair next to the side of the bed so that, while lying in the bed, I could place my leg off the edge of the bed and allow my foot to rest on a pillow in the chair. This would keep the bag lower than the catheter. It was a bit uncomfortable because I basically had to stay in one position on my back until I awoke to empty the bag. The sleep was not sound but I had grown accustomed to sleeping lightly.
On the night in question, I had gone to sleep with my left leg hanging slightly off the bed and with my left foot appropriately in the chair. A couple of hours later, I awoke with a start! Both of my legs were in the bed, which meant the bag was not lower than the catheter. In the dark, I quickly moved my left hand to the bag, and it was cold and empty! Active urine or blood flow from the bladder into the bag keeps the bag warm.
Immediately, I abandoned all that I had learned about trials and The Lord’s Prayer, and suddenly, I was alone in the dark and terrified!
I jumped out of bed—assuming one can “jump out of bed” with an indwelling catheter attached—and went to the bathroom just a few steps away. I turned on the light and looked closely at the bag. It was wrinkled, completely flat, and dark with dried blood. There was zero evidence of any urine at all. I was not in any pain, but I was frantic, and I had no idea what would happen next.
I returned to the bedroom and immediately began to think of the many words in the book about the Power and Presence of God. Something told me to get on my knees, drink water, and pray. There were three full bottles of water in my bed on the far side and I reached over and pulled them to the edge of the bed where I was standing. I picked up my pillow from the bed, placed it on the floor next to the bed, and the next thing I knew, I was on my knees with as much of my upper body as possible resting on the bed.
There in the dark of the room, with my knees resting on my pillow and my upper body on the bed, with water next to me, I prayed and thought of all I had learned recently about The Lord’s Prayer. I prayed and drank water, and felt my heart that had been racing, calm down as I truly felt the presence of my God, my Lord, and my Savior.
I calmed so much that I fell sound asleep or maybe I fell asleep as Jesus’ followers did in the Garden on that fateful night so long ago. I have no idea how long I prayed or slept, but eventually something woke me and I felt the bag, and it was warm and full. I was relieved and so very grateful for God’s work in my life and in this bedroom during this trying experience.
The bag seemed to be bursting at its seams. It was fuller than I had ever seen, and I knew it needed to be emptied right away. I immediately went to the bathroom and opened the valve at the bottom of the bag. Nothing came out—not one drop of anything—and there was a great deal of blood and some urine in the bag.
I was left without a choice. I had to switch the bags out and I had never done that before, but after the long prayer on my knees, I felt a calmness that I had not felt earlier. I reached for the other bag that was on the vanity and climbed into the shower. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I trusted that He was still with me, so with the shower running warm water over my body, I detached the catheter from the leg bag and attached it to the long tubing of the large bag on the floor of the shower. I then detached the small bag that was still strapped to my leg and dropped it onto the shower floor. As the hot shower water poured over the valve of the leg bag, the water dissolved the clotted blood that had stopped up the bag.
A smile came to my lips, as I thought about the two bottles of water that I had consumed while on my knees in prayer, while simultaneously I was being consumed by every sentence, every phrase, and every word of The Lord’s Prayer. That same water then flowed through my body did its miraculous work and became wastewater mixed with blood. The prayer had allowed me to understand there was nothing to fear in changing out the bags, and the water from the shower had overcome the blood clots and allowed the blood and urine to disappear down the drain.
One might wonder why the smile? What did I have to smile about considering the current circumstances? Throughout the Bible, blood and water is used symbolically numerous times (for life and for the Holy Spirit, respectively), but on this night I sensed the Power and Presence of God right there with me and the fear of the blood disappeared as it flowed down the drain of the shower
It was then that I went down the stairs to tell Lucia, calmly, that we may need to go to the ER. However, she was not calm and neither did she perceive me as being calm. Because I woke her out of a deep sleep, she was disoriented and did not have the benefit of my recent experience with God. I climbed into bed next to her and phoned Dr Tissot’s office for the doctor on call, leaving him a message and number to call me back. I had become so calm after so much prayer, I fell asleep and it was almost three hours before I heard from the doctor. I was not in pain and he suggested that I come in immediately after the office opened in a couple of hours, which I did.
