BLADDER WOES

My back has been great - I celebrated 3 weeks this morning and there have been no issues or pain.

I wish I could say the same for my bladder! Spinal surgery can cause bladder and bowel issues. My bowels worked fine when we came home. The bladder was another story.

They had catherized me during spinal surgery, and they removed that catheter before I went home. I was "leaky" but able to urinate some. The problems were that I started having bladder spasms the second night home from surgery - Monday, July 31st. Dr Kesler's nurse Amanda wanted me to come to their office for a bladder scan, to see if I was  retaining urine. I told her that I was still too shaky/weak to come to their office. I finally was able to come in on Thursday and I was retaining urine ( 500 ml).

They catherized me that day (Thursday, August 3rd). This catheter stayed in until Thurday Aug 10th. This was fine with me because without the catheter my sleep was affected by nightly 2 - 3 hour bouts of bladder spasms. During the spasms my bladder "shut down" and as soon as they stopped I would/leak/pee. With the catheter, there were no bladder spasms and I slept like a baby.

Amanda did another bladder scan on Aug 10th and I only had 27 ml in my bladder, so they took the catheter out. That very night, I had bladder spasms again that started at midnight, and were still going strong at 5:00 AM. I called the on call urologist, and he instructed me to go to the Hartford Hospital ER.

To Be Continued on the next page