After only two innings, forty minutes had past. Man, was this a slow sport! I was about to renew my adventure of channel surfing when the door opened, revealing my parents, accompanied by the nurse from before.
“Oh thank God you’re alright!” My mom said, rushing in to give me a hug.
“OUCH! If you keep that up, I won’t be!” I said as my abdomens screamed in pain. She apologized and backed off, sitting down on a chair next to the bed.
“I’ll leave you guys alone,” said the nurse. “Doctor Morrison will be in shortly to talk to you.”
“How are you holding up, sport?” My dad asked once the nurse left the room. “We were worried about you for a second. You almost gave your mother a heart attack”
“I’m not surprised. She freaks out every time I even trip.” I replied, causing my dad to laugh as my mom gave us a dirty look.
“Don’t act like it’s a crime!” she said. “I just don’t want my baby to get hurt!”
“Mom. Is that really necessary?” I whined. I always hated it when she called me her “baby.” I knew I was her only child but I liked to think of myself as a man. Besides, how many baby rock stars have you ever seen? It didn’t really complement my image very much. I decided to try to change the subject. “So what else has happened while I’ve been out” We continued in some small talk for a few minutes. However, since the main thing on the local news was the whole gas station event, there wasn’t much to talk about. Thankfully, not too long after we exhausted topics to talk about, Doctor Morrison entered the room.
“So here’s the hero.” He said with a cheesy grin. “How are you feeling?”
“OK, I guess. I’ve been better.”
“Do you have any pain in the abdominal region?”
“Yeah. It’s really sore and it hurts when I move too much.”
“OK. I’ll have Nurse Jennings bring you more pain pills in a bit. I bet you want to know what’s going on, don’t you?”
“Yeah. That would be nice.” I said. I was trying to be polite, but I was starting to lose my patience with this whole ordeal.
“Well, as you probably already know, you were shot. The bullet penetrated your bladder in the front and was lodged in the back. We were able to remove the bullet quickly and stitch your bladder up, but it’s been damaged very badly. We were able to operate on it during the second surgery and were able to make some progress.
“Wait. Do I have any control over it?” I inquired, slightly embarrassed about the topic.
“Well, yes and no. With the successful operation, everything should be fine, but it’ll take a month or two to heal. In the time being, I am prescribing a pill for you that relaxes the organ, allowing it to heal faster and easier. It’s very important that you take the pill. If you don’t you’re bladder may never heal completely. Unfortunately, your bladder won’t hold too much urine at once though. You won’t have much control over it at all. However, I think you’d rather have temporary incontinence than permanent. Am I correct?
“I guess.” My spirits dropped quite a bit. I was happy to hear that everything was going to be alright, but the fact that I wouldn’t be able to control my bladder made me feel helpless and dependent. I turned to my parents was glad to see that they were relieved quite a bit, but still had concerning looks on their faces.
“So, does he need any… er, protection?” My mom asked.
“Well, that is up to you, but I strongly recommend it, as it would be much less of a mess. Right now, he has a catheter hooked up to him, so he doesn’t need it, but when he leaves, he’ll need some incontinence products.” My heart sunk lower as I realized what they were talking about. Call me stupid, but I didn’t really think about this point. Their use of euphemisms weren’t helping either.
“You mean I have to wear diapers?” I asked bluntly.
“I’m afraid so.” the doctor responded. I looked to my mom for some support.
“There’s got to be another way, isn’t there?”
“I’m sorry, honey.” She said, rubbing my back. “But this seems to be the only one.”