Saturday, June 29, 2013

Post 66 - Boy, Is My Face Red!


In a prior post on this blog, Fran explained some of my urinary problems and mentioned how I had decided to have a supra pubic catheter installed.   For the benefit of those people who may not know, a supra pubic catheter procedure involves making a small incision just below the belly-button into which is run a  catheter that takes the liquid waste into a leg bag or, depending on the hour, into  a night bag hung on the side of the bed. Now that I sleep uninterrupted through the night I’m sorry I didn’t have the procedure done sooner.  There are a few minor inconveniences associated with the aftermath of having this type of catheter – one of which I ignored – and one which caused me great embarrassment!

A small pleasure I look forward to each month is when a few guys get together for a couple of hours to eat lunch, shoot the breeze, and play darts at a local pub (I don’t actually shoot darts – which could be very dangerous – I keep score, which keeps me safely behind the shooter’s area, either propped against or holding on to a counter-height table).  
 On this particular day, our group of R.O.M.E.O.s (Retired Older Men Eating Out) consisted of Ray (who usually drives me and pushes my wheelchair) Charlie, Allen, and Rob.  The only ROMERO missing was Dave who was off camping.  We had finished our lunch and were in the dart-throwing area already on our second game when disaster struck!  I was wearing new shorts which Fran had recently bought to cover the leg bag, which on this day was strapped to my right thigh.  The only problem is when you buy over-size shorts and you wear them before taking them in so the waist holds them up.

You can guess what happened next.  We were halfway through the second game, it was close, and I was intent on keeping score.  Perhaps because I was concentrating on the game, I failed to notice that my shorts were falling and were almost to the bottom.   If I tried to pull them up I’d probably end up on the floor – so I let them fall.

Now I know that Ray and Rob are good friends – they both helped me pull up my fallen shorts.  Anyway, the other people in the pub probably didn’t know or care what was going on at Dartboard #6 but if anyone was offended – my sincere apologies.