Transformation and uncertainty

I spent Saturday night with some relatives at home!

It’s been a good week. I started self-catheterizing on Monday, January 8, and my anxiety around it has fallen steeply, and the irritation it causes during and after has also gone down significantly. And I’ve returned home.

And now a week out, I’m very happy to say that the work I did to make catheterizing a possibility was very effective. The primary activities were crying with friends, meditating, and watching videos about catheterization. I felt and expressed my fear, anxiety, and grief, and once I did that, I was more able to consider self-catheterization. This all happened more than a week ago (i.e. before I wrote my previous update), and I’m back here to say that I’m glad I prepared as I did and I want to continue that.

Unfortunately, my need to catheterize has not gone away. I try to urinate every tie before I catheterize, and little urine comes out. Last week, the urology nurse asked if I wanted to make an order for catheterization supplies for the long term. I said no, since maybe the need will go away in a few days? When I again asked for and received more catheterization supplies yesterday, I requested supplies for the long term.

Of course I don’t know how long my urinary problems will go for, but it felt like the right time to consider this a long term issue. The urology nurse assured me that just waiting it out is the best course of action for now. I’m having a more sophisticated diagnostic (a urodynamic procedure) and it has been moved up to January 29 (It was originally scheduled for February 12).

So I’m sitting with uncertainty.

I returned to my home in Minneapolis on Friday. I’ve had numerous visitors and friends have stepped up to clean, do laundry, and otherwise help domestically. I enjoy being here, and appreciate visitors and domestic help. If you want to visit, please contact me directly.

Before the surgery, I noticed the contradiction of doing something that so many people say was so generous and at the same time feeling like I was being so self-centered to ask for help. I wondered if I was asking for more help than I needed. And it turns out I did need that help! The challenges and suffering have been hard in ways I couldn’t fully grasp until they happened.

I’ll end on the most vulnerable note. I love this life of giving of my kidney to somebody, receiving care from you, and heart felt conversations about what’s important. Perhaps donating my kidney is a valiant attempt to not have small talk in my life. So I want more of it. When I heal up more, I want to be more deeply immersed in caring for others, showing love, being present with suffering. It’s scary to think about what I might give up, and if I’ll follow through at all in what I’m saying here.

p.s. Just before I published this post, I was able to urinate a little more! Perhaps this is progress.