Do Nurses Make the Worst Patients?

Last week I ended up having my second surgery to remove the stones from my ureter with a laser. I was scheduled for a “Cystoscopy, left retrograde pyelograms, left ureteroscopy, holmium laser lithotripsy, stent exchange versus removal” or simply, looking at my bladder and ureter with a scope and camera, x-rays of left kidney, ureter, and bladder, and use of a laser to break up the stones. Unfortunately, I did receive another stent at the end of this procedure— which is where I prove that nurses really do make the worst patients.

First, I will say that the procedure went great, all of the stones were removed, I handled general anesthetic well and had an ‘uneventful’ procedure overall. Spent a short time in PACU, an even shorter time in Phase II, and was headed home before 1100. I went home and got a 3 hour uninterrupted sleep (I don’t think that’s happened in over 7 years thanks to my kids!) I was up for about an hour, then felt pretty sleepy again and ended up sleeping for another few hours and was feeling great afterwards- like nothing even happened!

The surgeon who operated on me chose to re-insert a stent, which I expected as we did discuss this being a strong possibility. He said that since he passed through my ureter many times, he didn’t want inflammation to become an issue and cause me to stop passing urine from my kidney into my bladder, which leads to hydronephrosis. He left the strings on the stent with a folded piece of tegaderm to ‘tag’ it. Leaving the strings would allow me to pull the stent at home at a later date when the risk of inflammation or any other issues is significantly lowered.

Well here we are only 2 days after surgery and while using the restroom I was careless and pulled down my underwear without ensuring the strings were free. I’m sure you can see where this is going. I felt a tug, but it wasn’t painful and it went away quickly. I didn’t think that I had actually pulled it out, so I kept on with my day. About 20 minutes later all of a sudden I noticed that my pants were wet. I knew immediately what happened. I rush to the bathroom and find that the distal pigtail of the stent is outside of my urethra, which means I have urine draining out of me that I am unable to control.

So, I sent my surgeon a little text… Another perk of working in the OR!

Side note— he told me to reach out to him if I had any issues or questions. There are things that most surgeons will not mind you reaching out about during their ‘non-work’ time, but there are others that can certainly wait until your next contact or a message into the office. Try to respect their personal time! Don’t take advantage of essentially having them on speed dial.

Now I’m nervous to pull this stent out! For one because what happens if I end up with a blocked ureter again and have to go through the ED in the middle of the night again? Second, how uncomfortable is this going to be?? I sucked it up and pulled it out. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it was going to be - the other pigtail (the one that was still INSIDE of me) did cause some discomfort as I pulled it out, but really just enough to make you cringe. The real pain came about an hour after it was removed. That’s when my ureter and bladder started to spasm. Luckily, he had prescribed medication for those spasms and after taking that medication and following his other instructions, I was a brand new person in the next hour. Like nothing ever happened!

You’ll never guess who I was scheduled to work with the following day… I passed him in the hallway as I was on the way to get his first patient and I just laughed and put my hand over my face with embarrassment and told him we’d be in the room in a few minutes. He just laughed and said he was glad I made it through. I’m also pretty sure I’ve been in the urology cases more in the the last month than I have the entire time I’ve worked in the OR!

For those of you that do not know what a stent looks like… here is the one I removed. The ends are called ‘pigtails’, I’m sure you can see why! The end without the string sits right inside your kidney (renal pelvis) and the pigtail end with the string sits in your bladder. The curls help to hold it in place with no real attachment so it can be flexible with movement and allow for easy removal.