Don’t let anyone tell you that going to New World isn’t dangerous

Diary of the last 20 hours and 300 bathroom breaks.

5.00pm yesterday

Finishing off the day’s newsletter, I pause for a moment for a bathroom break. 

This will not be the last euphemism I use in today’s newsletter. I’m about to take you on an adventure where nature will be vividly red in tooth and claw, but I don't want to make it too much to wade through. Today, figures of speech will be littering the footpath.

With each passing week since the surgery, the bathroom break has steadily become a happier experience. A revelation even. By degrees you habituate to having too much prostate and you forget how torrential the bathroom break is supposed to feel. These past couple of weeks have been just like old times. 

The first few days were a bit unnerving, firstly for wincing - flossing with barbed wire I was calling it - and secondly for seeing so much red. There you go, that’s what today’s adventure is about because just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, just as you’re taking a quick break before you finish the newsletter holy hell what’s this it’s shark attack time again. 

If you know what I mean. I’m sure you do. 

Sorry if yesterday’s newsletter seemed a little unfinished, I came back to the desk in an unnerved state. I had one eye on the Substack and the other was reaching for the phone to call the surgeon’s office.

I described the shark attack, I wished to know what it might mean. 

They asked: had I maybe strained, done some heavy lifting?

Gulp. Two hours earlier I had walked home with a grocery bag that was maybe more like 10kg than the 5kg limit. Goddamn, I’ve been being so careful. 

They asked: are you able to void? Yes for sure, I said, and described the shark attack scene in technicolour.

You should drink plenty of fluids, they said, but if you can’t void, you’ll need to get seen. We could see you at clinic tomorrow morning. 

I thanked them for the guidance, started making dinner and kept kicking myself for putting too much in the shopping bag. 

6.30pm

Now the silent screaming starts. Can I void? Yes, and no. I’m drinking gallons but not very much is making its way to the end of the process. And each visit - which is about every ten minutes - is painful and leaves me in a retching sweat. 

Karren asks do you need to get attention? I say let’s see. An hour later she asks again. I call Healthline. They say you should go and get seen right away. 

10.30 pm last night 

We’re at Shorecare, the customary scene: the boy with his head in his hands, the teenager in her sports gear, with her coach getting the hang of the crutches she’s just been given. Someone with chest pains. But not me this time, no sir, not chest pains, this time I’m here with bladder pains and I’m doing my best not to make a crime scene of their bathroom facilities. 

I tell the nurse the story so far and she says in a serious tone oh you were right to come.

Gulp.

The doctor gets me on the gurney, takes an ultrasound, shows me an image that might be my bladder but could just as easily be a topographic map of Coromandel. He shows me a large dark blob, tells me it’s a blood clot, says it’s blocking the exit from the bladder. His fancy equipment measures the clot as 4cm across and I keep looking at the blob and the legend 4cm on the screen as he explains to me what can happen next.

Friends, if this is a bit much, apologies. But we’re almost halfway there now. Tomorrow we’ll be back to the Dismal Awards and MTAF Hall of Fame and whatnot, promise. 

What can happen next he said is: the clot may slowly dissolve. But if it blocks you from voiding then you’ve got a big problem.

Like, er, life threatening. Good oh. 

So what happens then? Best go directly to Auckland hospital.  Meanwhile keep drinking vast amounts of fluids and keep expelling them. And here are some antibiotics in case it’s not a strain but an infection.

I pass the night, passing what I can. The shark attack is not letting up. First thing in the morning I call the surgeon.

Today 9.30am

Now I’m sitting on the gurney again and the surgeon’s got the ultrasound out and he says: yes that’s a whole lot of clot. 

And he says: that’s bad luck. 

Gulp.

He says by week four I should have been alright with lifting but it looks as though a small part burst and bled and now I’ve got this clot in there working like a ball valve shutting off the flow. 

He says: so we’ll need to give it a washout. With a catheter.

Oh, I say. Well I guess if it has to be done it has to be done. 

Yes, he says. Now. 

He has all the necessary equipment right there in the next room. Wait right there, I’ll cue up the Mule Skinner Blues again.

You’ll want to take all of that off, he says, gesturing at everything that isn’t my shirt, it gets a bit messy. 

Reader, the next hour was a catalogue of sensations that I would, you bet I would, wish on my worst enemy. Misery loves company, and gel, and big suction syringes, and catheters, more than one of them, oh yes. And when he said it gets a bit messy he was not wrong and the aprons he and his nurse were wearing were an entirely good idea. 

But misery is also lightened by conversation. We chatted as they suctioned and cleaned and mopped: what we did for Easter, the random chaos of Auckland traffic, the Wiggles. That came up because they said are you all right, you’re shaking? I said you’re right I need to find my inner Richie McCaw. At moments I was Richie, at other moments I was looking for a foxhole to lose my atheism. 

All good things must come to an end and also so must a washout.

Your job for today, he said, is to drink litres and litres of water.

I said does this mean I’m back at day one?

He said no, it’s a small setback, see you in two weeks. 

1.00pm

So far I have consumed two or maybe fourteen tanks of water and I’m very glad to report that the pipes the pipes are not crawling. If you know what I mean. 

2.23pm

Back to normal. Back to normal is what I mean. 

Don’t let anyone tell you that going to New World isn’t dangerous.