"Wonderful praise to the district nurse"

I want to give wonderful praise to the district nurse Shona who visited me recently. It started in the morning when another young nurse came to my house to remove my catheter – I have prostrate cancer and have my catheters removed and replaced every 12 weeks. I thought it had gone ok and everything seemed fine, but the nurse told me that there was a lot of blood coming from my penis and she was concerned – wanting to call for an ambulance. I declined because I just didn’t want the fuss, so it is not that young lady’s fault by any means. She stayed with me for a while and the pain in my penis calmed down and so did the bleeding. She changed my leg bag and said she would return at 2pm to check in on me.

She came back as promised and did my obs – blood pressure, temp – that sort of thing and all was ok.

But during the course of day things started to turn a bit nasty, I was getting pains in the penis and the surrounding area and the pain seemed to be getting worse. About 9.30pm I rang the number I have for the district nurses and explained the situation to them, their advice was to walk around and drink lots of water. I wasn’t sure how this would help but I did as they asked.

About midnight I felt even worse so I got undressed and thought it would be better if I laid down on my bed, but this made me feel even worse. I could feel urine and possibly blood leaking from the penis and this is not supposed to happen when you are wearing a catheter. I thought oh no I am in some kind of trouble here so I rang the nurses again.

This is where Shona comes into it, she arrived just after 1am and she was fantastic. Very nice and very sociable, putting me at ease and letting me know she was going to sort everything out and that I would be fine. Reassuring me she was. She checked out all the equipment that I have at my home and then she prepared my bed – which was clean as I had just changed all the bedding that very day, so that she was able to carry out what she needed to do safely.

She changed the catheter, and I never felt a thing, no pain, so professionally. She explained that because of prostate cancer you had to be very precise when inserting the tube.

They left (there was another girl with her) about an hour later after making sure I was comfortable and ordering some anaesthetic wipes and other stuff I needed from the hospital.

I slept pain free with no further problems.

Such a wonderful caring lady and team. First class job and I wanted to give praise where it is due and send them a big thank you. I am hoping Shona is on duty the next time I need my catheter changing.