We Know You Have One

A female patient needed to be catheterized. One nurse tried without success, then another and then another until three of us were surrounding her with all of our hands pulling apart her private parts looking for the hole. I hate it when this happens. She didn't much care for it either. At one point she said, "Are you sure you gals went to nursing school?"

We started out using aseptic technique, but at some point we were just desperate to find the hole and to hell with aseptic technique. A frustrated urologist once told me basically the same thing when he was unable to find the hole and had abandoned any thoughts of cleanliness. He said, "Sometimes it's all about finding the hole. We can give her antibiotics later if she develops an infection."

The right spot was found in an unlikely place, inside the vagina and off to the right. We knew she had a peepee, although I was starting to have doubts. It's too bad that people don't come with standardized parts.