The Penis Problem

The last thing that I want to do is make fun of this patient. He is such a nice man and it must have been out of his control what happened to him. But now, he is so fat that he can no longer walk. He is also incontinent and dribbles continually. Lying in bed all day, soaked in urine, has caused his skin to break down. We change his linens frequently, but still, he is always wet.

The logical solution would be to insert a catheter. The problem is that no one can find his penis. It's not like we haven't tried. Dozens of us have gone penis hunting during his long hospitalization.

Once, we got close. He dribbled some urine during a hunt, allowing us to narrow the scope of territory to within a few inches, but still, we couldn't find it. The patient is also starting to get testy when he feels us poking around down there. Our hunts are limited to only about a minute at a time before he tells us to knock it off.

I'm reasonable sure he has a penis. He has children. It's just that with all of the folds, it is hiding. In a situation that this, I usually just ask the patient to find it for me. It is a common problem, but this situation is different. His abdominal fold hangs down to his knees. He can't get his arms past it to reach his penis.

The poor man needs and desires bariatric surgery, but he is a poor candidate. The doctors believe that he would die on the operating table.

Usually, nurses fight over who has to take care of morbidly obese patients, but with him, it is different. It is back-breaking work to take care of him, but he is so nice, we don't mind. I just wish that we could catheterize him so that his skin could heal.