Beware of catheter BCG and nurses!

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First I guess I should introduce myself. I’m 49 years old have been cancer free for a year. My story begins in 2014 and my 6 courses of BCG treatment. Never having been catheterized before I found it rather unpleasant, but some of the nurses made it bearable. The first 5 treatments went off without a hitch and then the last one, this is the one that sealed my fate so to speak.
The one thing they stressed was that you come to the hospital with some fluid in your bladder so they can tell if the catheter is in the right place or not. Sounds fair. So doing as I was instructed sitting in my room waiting for the nurse to arrive doing the pee pee dance, chatting with the person in the other bed getting some nasty chemo. About 3 min before the nurse arrived I no longer had the urge to urinate, no big deal.
The procedure commences and the nurse installs the anaesthetic roughly, of course I complain, then the catheter, again with no real regard for the area in which he is inserting it in. Again I raise the complaint with a little more force ,should have told him we should change places.
At this point he questioned me if I had any fluid in my bladder. I said yes but there was, no fluid coming out, did the sitting up thing several times did some crunches again he asked me if I had any fluid in there YES I said. This went on for a few min then without saying anything he starts the procedure. I felt something kind of oozing around the catheter. Having been anaesthetized it is hard to tell what is going on. He then fires in the BCG and takes out the catheter. Then starts to grab some absorbent pads in a hurried fashion. Not saying anything again so I have a look and see nothing but blood coming out of my penis. Concerned I STRONGLY protest what is going on damnit! Oh I guess the catheter was not fully in the bladder. No shit! Upon inflation the small bladder in the catheter ruptured the urethra. The anaesthetic has worn off, pain erupts from my penis and I have to pee, even more pain. The type that feels like you are pissing razors. I should thank the woman in the bed next to mine at this point who was a nurse, she told me to occasionally sit up so the blood clots could exit and not get stuck. Then I would be in trouble. Little did we know.
He comes back after 30 min or so to tell me I can go after an hour, not asking about the bleeding or the pain level. I just tell him to leave or he will be needing some help himself! An hour later I am waiting for a cab to take me home it is warm out 25c ish, but yet I am getting colder by the min. By the time I get home I am freezing, shaking, sweating, having to pee again. I just want to get home and lie down. A few hours later my partner gets home see’s me and off we go to the hospital, clearly in distress. After about 6 hours in the emergency ward the dr claims I have a nasty flu and go home with some antibiotics, now piss off!
4 months later back problems start at my job, I have a physical job don’t think anything about it. 4 months after that my back is getting worse. 2 months after that I can no longer do my job, lay in bed, have sex, tie my shoes etc.
I then spent another 4 months going form one dr to another till I found my current dr and he wonders if it has anything to do with the cancer treatment. BINGO! The rupture in the urethra and my expulsion of the BCG treatment caused the BCG to leak into my body cavity. And consequentially settled in my spine and started to slowly eat away the bones of my spine. If it sounds painful IT IS! To the point of loosing 45 lbs., and part of my sanity wondering why I can’t get out of bed without pain or basically do anything I once did.
Now I am dealing with Osteomyelitis of the thoracic/lumbar spine with biopsy positive for AFB! Basically TB of the spine of the bovine variety which is immune to the class of antibiotics that work the best with the TB virus. That is why I have to be on these antibiotics for a year then the spine surgeons can figure out what they want to do. So now it has been 19 months with another 12-18 to go.
And yet no one ever mentioned this in talking about this procedure. SO BEWARE! If anyone has had an experience like mine pay attention to your back and don’t take no for an answer. If you have to seek out different dr’s in your area and get answers. All this because a nurse did not follow hospital procedure. So raise your voice, demand answers, complain, don’t be compliant be a pain in the ass. The life you save my be your own.

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