Well Mither and Pop are gone and we had a very nice visit.  They headed out this morning about 11:00 and should be home about 6:00 if the traffic cooperates.  (Not likely.)

It was great seeing them since we don’t cross paths that much anymore and I can’t ever go and see them because there’s no one to take care of Henrietta.  That really sucks,  mostly because they have all the extra room.  John and I gave them our bedroom downstairs and we kicked Keelan out of her room, upstairs, onto the couch and we slept up there.  Mither’s knees don’t work too well anymore and Pop’s breathing is quite labored, (many, many years of smoking), so the stairs aren’t really an ideal fit.  But our bed was, so that worked out well.  They were here for six days and we got a good drink of each other.

We found out that John is going to be moved soon to another store in the district.  The bad news is that it’s just barely in the district.  Pearland to be exact.  He’s got a good hour commute to and from.  More likely an hour and a half.  Not to mention it’s the new store and the largest one of this company’s in Texas.  Yes, indeed, they are having him do another &%*#$^! grand opening.  Oh joy.  (Feel the sarcasm.)  With all the grand opening stores he’s worked at before, (yes, they make a habit of abuse), he’s been expected to work 14 hour days.  (I would like to point out that he is a salaried employee and receiving nothing extra for the extra hours put in.)  Except he only had to travel a few miles to get to work.  I believe the furthest he had to go was Galveston and it’s only about 25 minutes to get on the island.  They are supposed to announce the changes on Monday and I am pissed off about it.  I told him he may as well get an apartment in Pearland and stay there and come home on his days off.  He thought for a minute and told me he wasn’t sure which would cost more, the apartment or the gas to go to and from Pearland.  Not to mention our car has over 100,000 miles on it.  We paid it off last month and I am CERTAIN it will fall apart now. *bitch, bitch, bitch*

Things were moving right along today.  Everything going smoothly just like, proverbial, clockwork.  I should have been watching for the other shoe to drop.  I should have made everyone go freakin’ barefoot.

I went in and fed Henrietta breakfast and removed the tray and put her on the bedpan and she pooed and I cleaned her up and diapered her and took off her nightgown and put on her shirt and had her pants all ready, just had to empty her catheter bag that was rather full from overnight.  AS PER NORMAL PROCEDURE.

The home health care nurses that visit and leave me with the equipment that I need to own and operate an H. on a daily basis have consistently been inconsistent with the type of bag for the urine to collect in.  For several months I will have the kind I like with the plastic clip that pinches the flexible tube off.  Then you just tuck the end of the tube into a little hard plastic hollow bump attached to the side of the bag.  This is the kind I prefer.

So today I am in there working with the one I don’t like.  It has a green hard plastic tip on the end of the flexible tube that “clips” into a receptacle on the outside of the bag and a sharp edged metal clip on the flexible tube to pinch off the  flow of pee.

My reasons for not liking this particular kind of bag are varied, but, I do believe the most compelling is the fact that if, for some reason, the bag becomes unhooked from under the wheelchair and falls on the floor, (This has happened many times.), H will, inevitably, run over the bag and the metal clip punches a hole in the soft, pliable plastic bag.  Occasionally, this only creates a very small puncture and I don’t notice the leakage when she is taken into bed.  Then in the morning I am greeted with a very small puddle of, “Oh, what’s this?  Did she spill her juice?  There’s not much of it and it is right underneath where she was sitting…. OH SHIT.”  I then go in and look under her bed and there is small lake of urine.  A pond, if you will.

Getting back to my original enthralling story of urine mishaps, I happily toiled away at getting her dressed, pooped, peed and out of bed.  I was about to put on her pants and needed to empty the bag o’ pee.  I grasped the green plastic clip gizmo between my thumb and index finger, just as I had a million times before and pulled.  Nothing.  I pulled again, a bit harder.  Nothing.  Well, what is the matter with this stupid thing anyway? I pinched the two little things together harder that you have to do to get the damn contraption to work and finally the clip released.  It also, somehow, released the metal clip that holds back the flow of urine.  I sprayed pee all over the damn room.  It hit the bedside table and all over the floor.  Somehow I missed her bed skirt.  I don’t really know how that happened, it’s white for heaven’s sake.  Seems like, whatever demonic little twit it was that organized this assault on my day, would have managed to have the bed linens sprayed as well.  Turns out the devil was not that thorough in this particular war campaign against moi.

I know there will be a rallying of the troops and another assault.  I am waiting and watching.  I am a feared.  As far as WMD’s go this was just the urine.  Can poop be far behind?  No pun intended.

I know I will get a HUGE backlash if I don’t post actual photos of the catheter bag…  Fascinating, huh?  Aren’t you glad you stuck through the icky post to get to see this?

Here is the stupid clip thingy undone from the damn bag.  The metal clip thing on the tube had slid down and gotten caught between the stupid green pinching things.  Whatever.  I’m still mad…

See how sharp the sides of the metal clip are?  I mean, what could the reason for this possible be?  I suppose to use it to slit your own throat when the damn bag fails and you have to clean up an ocean of pee?  Yes.  I am certain that is what the manufacturer was thinking…