Paul Barnacle

I won’t be on @absoluteradio for a few weeks as I’m having an operation on Thursday that will blow your mind. As a result of the life-saving spinal surgery I had two years ago, the nerves to my bladder and bowel were cut. This has left me with a stoma for solids and the need to self catheterise to pee. It also left me with something called stress incontinence. Lots of women experience it after childbirth. Whenever I laugh, cough or sneeze, piss comes out. And I’m a ticklish asthmatic with hay fever. I’m sodden. It’s costing me a fortune in Tena pants. So I’m having an artificial urinary sphincter implanted. This thing is GENIUS. It’s like a lassoo, which will wrap around my pee pipe and tighten it so that I don’t leak anymore. However, I’ll still need to catheterise in order to empty my bladder. So in order to loosen the lassoo, I press a button which deflates it and allows me to get a catheter down there. But where is this button going to go? In between my balls. Here are some pictures of it. On the left is the entire device. The middle photo shows the reservoir on the left. That will sit behind my abdominal wall. On the right is the lassoo (known as the cuff). That will wrap around the pipe and inflate with fluid to tighten it. The final photo shows the button. That will sit in between my balls. Inside the bag. When it’s time to pee, I press that. (Once I can pin it down. It’s going to be like finding a penny in a bag of mozzarella). The button then deflates the cuffs by moving the liquid to the reservoir. Afterwards, the cuff will reinflate with water and tighten up again. So I’ll be off for a bit while I heal. The nurse told me ‘for 8 weeks it’ll feel like someone has smashed you in the balls with a hammer’. And she hadn’t seen Forest this season.