A New Reality: Learning to Live with a Catheter

In the ICU, I had to learn things I never imagined I would—things that stripped away every ounce of privacy and independence I once took for granted. One of them was self-catheterization.

For the first time in my life, I had to insert a tube into my urethra just to urinate. Every six hours. Every single day. For the rest of my life.

A nurse handed me a sterile kit and began explaining the process. Her voice was calm and precise, the kind of practiced instruction she had probably given dozens of times before. Inside the kit were two sterile gloves, an antiseptic solution, lubricant, and the catheter itself.

“The most important thing,” she emphasized, “is that everything stays sterile. If any part of the catheter gets contaminated, even slightly, you could develop a urinary tract infection (UTI). And for people with spinal cord injuries, a UTI can quickly turn into a kidney infection. That’s dangerous.”

I nodded, trying to focus, but my mind was spinning. Just days ago, I could go to the bathroom like anyone else. Now, I was being told I had to perform a medical procedure on myself—six times a day—just to do something as basic as urinating.

She walked me through the process step by step. Put on the gloves. Open the antiseptic. Wipe carefully. Lubricate the catheter. Insert it.

It sounded simple enough. But the moment I tried it myself, I failed.

The sterile field was impossible to maintain. If the gloves touched the bed—contaminated. If my fingers brushed against the catheter—contaminated. If the tube touched anything but its intended path—contaminated.

Each time I made a mistake, the nurse sighed gently, took away the kit, and handed me a new one. Again. And again.

I lost count of how many kits I wasted. Frustration built inside me, but I had no choice. I had to learn this. My survival depended on it.

And then came another problem.

The catheter wouldn’t go in.

The clear plastic catheters the hospital provided didn’t always work for me. Sometimes, they stopped halfway, refusing to go any further. One time, a nurse tried to push it harder teared something inside. Blood trickled out, but even then, the catheter wouldn’t go in.

Seeing my struggle, another nurse brought in every type of catheter available in the hospital, hoping one would work. We tried straight catheters, hydrophilic ones, ones with softer tips. Nothing.

Finally, we found one that worked—a rubber catheter with a curved tip. Unlike the others, this one somehow maneuvered past whatever was blocking the way and slid in smoothly. Relief.

But the challenges weren’t over.

Even after I mastered the technique, infections became my next battle.

No matter how carefully I followed the instructions, UTIs became a constant cycle. The doctors prescribed strong antibiotics, but the infections kept coming back. And with each infection, my body weakened, and my recovery felt further away.

Before the accident, I had never once thought about something as simple as urination. It was automatic, effortless. Now, it was a scheduled, sterile, and sometimes painful process that dictated my days.

It was humiliating. Frustrating. Unfair.

But it was also necessary.

I had already lost so much—my mobility, my independence, my old life. I refused to let this defeat me too.

Because life doesn’t stop for our struggles—we just learn to live with them. And that’s exactly what I intended to do.