Once again, it was time for me to leave a urine sample in my urologist's office as part of the instillation process. Instillations are a fun part of having interstitial cystitis, since this treatment is a medicine that is instilled in the bladder through a catheter. Catheters are super fun and exciting instruments of torture. Wohoo!
This time I was lacking some creativity on what to write on the outside of my urine specimen cup. If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you'll remember that I like to write a bit of whimsy on the outside of each cup, just because. This was fun at first but then the nurse admitted that sometimes when she has a crummy day, she actually looks forward to handling my pee just because of the little statement on the cup. Pressure!
So, I resorted to asking for ideas on facebook. I got several, but the winning idea came from Scott Lovelis. He suggested getting a Mott's apple juice sticker for the cup. Now, I didn't have one of those hanging around but I did have a bunch of Mott's juice boxes and the cardboard thingo that goes inside the shrink-wrapped container of boxes. So I got out my scissors and packed the cut-out and some tape in my purse. And I giggled a little.
This idea only worked because I’m in pretty good shape, pain-wise, nowadays and I don’t have to use bladder pain meds very often. The pain meds make urine either fire red or an odd toilet-bowl-cleaner blue. Neither would be likened to apple juice.
I went into the bathroom to execute my plan. I decorated the cup, took the picture, and then realized I could never pee in it and not bump/knock off/mess up the Mott’s sign. So I had to employ a second cup and then poured the pee in the creative cup VERY CAREFULLY. I am very committed to this gag, clearly.
The nurse loved it, of course! She complimented me on my creativity. I had to admit I’d gotten the idea from someone on facebook. I’m pretty sure she still thinks I’m awesome.
To add to today’s fun, my regular nurse was training a new nurse. This nurse had never done a catherization before (and she still hasn’t; today she was just watching, thankfully) and so my regular nurse had to give a step-by-step lecture on the whole thing. “You see this? This is the urethra.” Wonderful.
Life. It just doesn’t get much better than this!
The "or not" part was all me.
For more posts about Interstitial Cystitis, including all my crazy urine cups, click here.
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