Not sure which President of the US said it but to paraphrase "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and I suppose that all of the accounts of going to get Immunotherapy all mention the dreaded catheter but not anything else about it.
So I was more concerned about that than anything else but I knew it could be no worse than the flexible cystoscopy I had had earlier in the process. That used a local anaesthetic.
I have to tell you that I don't think that they used a local today. But the Nurse was ever so nice and in moments the procedure was all over.
I arrived early and checked in and had just sat down - 10 minutes early mind you, and commenced reading my book. No more than a paragraph and I was called through. The Nurse quickly reminded me of the procedure, I went to the toilet and emptied my bladder (as you do) and laid on the bench. You just need to drop your trousers and underpants so no real undressing as such.
The procedure involves inserting a catheter and being brave I didn't look :-) I have got to the point now with all these things to tell the nurse that I am not going to look but will listen and obey their instructions. Also learn to breath properly as that helps settle me down anyway. The catheter really couldn't be felt apart from one bit (the advice here was to wiggle my toes and I suppose that helped a bit). I can't say it was painful, more unexpected and almost made me open my eyes in surprise. That slight bit of discomfort was over in a second or two and that really was all that there was to it. The BCG mixture was put in, I didn't feel that go in, the catheter came out and I hardly felt that either. The Nurse did say that she had done this a number of times and I think that in itself must account for how easy it was.
So I pulled my pants and trousers back on, had the briefest of chats and that was it. My poor wife had gone off to park the car which took longer than me having the treatment. As she emerged from the car park I had already been waiting for 5 minutes to see her.
We arrived home and I had to do 15 minutes on each side (you feel like a sausage in a recipe). So 15 minutes on front, left, right and back to allow the BCG to get every where. Then wait until the two hours are up and you can go to the toilet following all the precautions you will be given. These include using bleach, ensuring you don't get any sort of splashes on yourself etc.
If anything there is a very slight minor irritation but it is so minor as not to worry about. There looks to be a little blood in the urine as well - this is normal apparently.
So 1 down and 5 more to go of these. The Side Effects should start to kick in either next week or the week after and we will monitor those.
I had some fun explaining quite how this was administered to someone the other day. I think Billy Connolly would have fun explaining that to someone like this:
"So I went to have my treatment and the nurse showed me this thing called a Catheter. Where are you going to stick that?" "OH MY GOD, SHE'S GOING TO STICK IT UP MY WILLY!"
So now you know but, please I am the most squeamish person I know and it isn't that bad. I like to think of it as what are the alternatives and let's face it they just aren't even worth contemplating.
More when I know more.
