Posted by Loz on 31/5/2008, 3:29 pm, in reply to "Learned to self cath today..."

I cannot sing the praises of this site enough. Without it, and the people and the brilliant advice I've been given, I wouldn't have, for the first time in my life, had a night in the kind of environment I had last night, without this condition making me unhappy and running my life. I had my uni summer ball, which I knew was to involve lots of wine, lots of dancing in a field from 10pm til 6am....and portaloos. But I was in control now because I'd been taught how to use caths. So rather than do what I'd normally do, avoid liquid all day, waste loads of money pretending to be drinking when I was drinking 1/4 glass and subtly tipping the rest away so people wouldn't query. Instead, my mindset was that I forgot. I had my cups of tea all day as I normally would, I accepted the glass of wine when I was getting ready and went, with caths, to the ball. Ideally I would have visited the toilets before I really needed to to get used to it, but as the situation was, the first opportunity I got the chance to I actually needed to pee. Going into the portaloo, I knew there was no pressure and when I wasn't able to pee it wasn't a problem, I used a cath. And it felt so liberating to be able to leave that loo having voided, knowing that I was no longer the "freak" who was visiting the loo but not going. Then...well as far as I'm concerned, miracles happened. I went to the loo twice when a friend did but I didn't really feel like I needed to go...and peed both times without the help of a cath. In a portaloo, probably for the first time ever in my life, certainly the first time I can remember. I feel like I've got my life back. Or at any rate, my youth back. The chance to do everything I want to while I'm young So thank you so much for the help and advice. Thank you so, so, so much Loz

407