I'm currently working with a new computer program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It basically allows me to type hands-free by speaking into a headset. I've learned you basically have to train the program first, because it's customized to each user's voice. And right now it's like breaking in a stubborn donkey, and I want to roast that donkey over an open flame.

I am persisting with this program, because it is my only chance of filling my dream to write at this point. When I first came to this website, I was typing with one finger on one hand. One page of text would be enough to exhaust me or leave me in agony. I'm not sure what my pain psychologist would say about my "cheating", but at this point, this program represents my only shot at becoming productive in the only way I know how. I bought the program using my own limited funds, and the store ripped me off and gave me new, virus-bloated software and a broken headset. I paid full price for a new program at Staples store and the Clark assured me that had I only come a day earlier I could've gotten the program for $40 off.

I have a tech savvy friend who installed the program for me and in less than a week. (I had decided I couldn't stand to my catheter replaced anymore without better pain control, or at least better anxiety drugs. I did some research in the subject, in medical sources, and learned a) that I should've been sedated for the procedure.

b) a Foley catheter other insertion was done on a nine-year-old able-bodied girl. It took nine fully grown nurses to hold her down, to insert one little rubber tube up your urethra. I can assure you that the procedure is extremely painful. If you are absolutely still, the procedure is very quick, but this girl resisted so long and so loudly that it took nurses over an hour for insert the catheter. And at that point the hospital started a program called "pediatric sedation" and she was one of the first candidates and it was like night and day for her.

Once I saw point B, my days with the catheter were numbered. This was not put in me to save my life, but to boost my already remote chances of getting a job. I had endured one catheterization as a teenager and posttraumatic pain I went through. I agreed to it again because once my hip was removed I could no longer use washrooms on my own and I was faced the prospect of at the very least being housebound for the rest of my life, because I needed to roll around in bed to pull up my pants after wash from trips. I was going every two hours. When I went to that job-training program, this non-medical expert decided that I need to much help with bathroom trips and so she suggested intermittent catheterization, which I did not have the manual dexterity to carry out. So I went permanent, and suffered years of hell. At least a decade of in all. But my first three were spent with a Foley catheter constantly in me and it cost me constant agony while I was sitting up.

I realize that one day I would refuse to carry on such madness any further, especially given that no other chronic pain survivor on this website needs a catheter in their bladder to go to the washroom. I would not recommend getting one unless your life is in danger and even then, I would strongly recommend that you demand, yes, DEMAND, proper pain control. Or something for anxiety much stronger that Ativan.