My urologist's nurse wanted to check me out, but we were frankly tired of all the trips to Hartford and Farmington, so on August 17 she sent me to Manchester  which is closer to our home. We had the pleasure of meeting Nina. Besides being smart (she was an APRN) she was very empathetic.

When she heard that they had put the same catheter back in in the ER, she put in a new one. She also took another blood test, and extended my prescription of Keflex. We went home thinking our catheter nightmare was over.

But on  August 23rd around 10 PM, I started leaking around my catheter again. We called the on call urologist who once again directed us to the ER. This time we lucked out. We had a physician's assistant who flushed out the blood clots (this had been the cause for the last two ER visits), and a nurse who was one of 3 people who were really good at putting in a catheter (the other two were a urologist in the office, and Nina). all we had to do is lay low until August 28th, when the catheter was finally removed for good.

Having a catheter put in while you're awake is not painful, but unpleasant. Some of the ER nurses need to have one put in them and maybe they'd get better at it. Like I said, there are actually people who are good at it and the experience while not pleasant is better.