Brittney received compensation from Coloplast to provide this information. Each person’s situation is unique so your experience may not be the same.
Me: You want me to put that where?
Nurse: In your urethra.
Me: Are you serious?
Nurse: Yes.
Me: You're saying I have to find that tiny hole, with that tiny thing, in the place that I can’t feel anymore?
This was the conversation I recall having as a 14-year-old learning to self-cath after I was paralyzed in a snowmobiling accident.
It didn’t go well.
In fact, all I could think was this is impossible!
There is no way that people do this.
There is no way that I will actually be able to do this.
I don’t want to do this.
And I meant it.
I did not listen when the nurses explained the process to me and I threw a teenage temper tantrum when I was encouraged to learn.
And since my mom felt so darn sorry for me, she decided to just do it herself and save me the
heartache. The more I refused to accept responsibility for my own personal care, the more my mom gave in and did things for me. Cathing, dressing, transfers, you name it my mom did it. Before long I was totally dependent on her.
I was ashamed that I didn’t know how to self-cath and embarrassed that I was a teenager who still needed my mom’s help to go to the bathroom, but I was too afraid and intimidated to learn how to do any of it myself. I was so convinced that I would never be able to figure it out and so desperate to be independent that I decided I needed the mitrofanoff procedure, a major surgery that reroutes the urethra to your lower abdomen, allowing you to cath more easily.
My mom made all the appointments, the surgery was scheduled, and I nervously awaited as the date approached. On the day of surgery, literally just hours before I was scheduled to go under the knife, my intuition told me that this wasn’t the right thing to do. After all, I hadn’t even really tried to learn how to self-cath. What if there were major complications from the surgery? Did I really need this surgery, like I had convinced myself? I was scared and embarrassed but told my mom that I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through with it and to my relief she agreed. Without a second thought, we informed the surgeon that I had changed my mind and we packed up and left the hospital.
It was that brave moment, the moment I decided to take responsibility for my future, that I began to believe that it was possible for me to be independent.
I wish I could say that it was easy. That learning to self-cath, transfer, and do my own bowel routine was simple. But it wasn’t. It was difficult, frustrating, and a lot of hard work. But I didn’t give up.
First, I learned to cath on the bed, using a mirror so that I could learn my own anatomy. Then I memorized the feeling of that anatomy to my own touch and slowly I began to feel confident. I still couldn’t cath on the toilet, but as long as there was a bed I could finally go to the bathroom on my own.
The last push I needed to really become independent came when I moved out of the house at 18 and into a bigger city, a city where I met other people in wheelchairs. People who could give me advice and who didn’t accept any of my excuses.
One of those people was my friend Margaret, a no holds barred quariplagic that was ready to tell me what I needed to hear and show me that I was more capable than I believed. It was Margaret who introduced me to the technique she uses to self-cath and it has changed my life.
The things that I struggled with most about cathing were how long it took to undress and how difficult it was to get on the toilet.
Margaret showed me that a simple zipper in the seam of her crotch allowed her to cath from her wheelchair without getting undressed or onto the toilet. She simply scooched her butt to the edge of her wheelchair, propped one leg on the toilet (or any surface available) and cathed into a bottle. It was so easy I could hardly believe it.
I was so excited to try this technique because it would give me the independence I desperately needed. Even though my first attempts were failures, I didn’t give up and before long I had mastered the technique. I adapted it to my own abilities and have been using it ever since.
I never get undressed to pee and I never transfer onto the toilet. I don’t even need access to a bathroom. I can now cath literally anywhere. In my car, in bed, in an airplane, in a field. As long as I have my standard SpeediCath or my SpeediCath Compact Set (which is a catheter and bag all in one) I am good to go. Both of these products are small, require no lubrication, and are easy to use!
Self-cathing, the thing that I once thought was impossible, the thing that intimidated me the most, has become the thing that I like most about being paralyzed.
I can basically pee like a man and I think that’s awesome!
