Wondering what I should follow my last blog about exercise with, it only made sense to also encourage you to get an annual checkup. Thinking on that subject I remembered what was perhaps the most hilarious thing that I can remember in my entire life and it happened in a doctor’s office. (I wouldn’t want you to think that I have become a serious old curmudgeon just because I’ve turned 86)

I had a back operation and was in the hospital. The doctor said I could go home if I could empty my bladder. I really wanted to go home so I used the bathroom in my room and emptied my bladder really well before he came to see me. When he came in, I told him what I had done. He said I had to show them, not tell them.

I was dry. I really wanted to go home. He said if I had a catheter put in, I could go home and come back the next day, then have the catheter taken out and tested. I said, “Great.”

A nurse, that had never inserted a catheter before, was told to do it. She forgot she had to lubricate the tube and was only successful in making my little man raw and bleeding. A doctor was called and he did it with no problem. No that wasn’t the funny thing – believe me, but I got to go home.

I was back at the hospital early the next day, worried about the test. I didn’t have any urine in my bladder; it just ran through the catheter into a bag. The doctor told me not to worry, it was OK and handed me a gown.

I took off my clothes and put on a gown that covered nothing like most hospital gowns, laid down on my back and he proceeded to pull the long tube out of my little man. He had a nurse there to aid him in the procedure. I think she was a trainee. She looked about 18 years old and very cute. He told her to give me the test and left.

She explained that she was going to put in another catheter (I almost got up to run out of the hospital) and pore a flask of water into a funnel through the tube and into my bladder to fill it. Then she would take the catheter out and I would have to empty my bladder into a container and they could measure it and tell if I was able to get it all out. I will not describe the procedure she had to go through to accomplish this, let’s just say that she and my little man became very close friends before it was through. My bladder was full. She pulled out the tube. All that was left was for me to urinate into the container.

She handed me the container and looked me right in the eyes and said (with a straight face), “Would you like for me to leave the room, so you can have some privacy?”  I couldn’t contain myself. I started laughing and then she fell apart and we were laughing so hard I almost missed the container.

I’m not sure what the message of this blog is, but I think it is to see your doctor at least once a year for a good checkup.