I just got out of the hospital, and my mood has been shredded. I found out that our medical system doesn't seem to take any account of bipolar illness (I'm bipolar II), or even listen to you much about anything, when treating you for physical illness.

I've been having mini-strokes (transient ischemic attacks), with tingling and numbness on one side of my body. MRIs and CT scans show that vertebral and carotid arteries are blocked 30-85 percent. So I had to get an operation to have a stent put into one vertebral artery, and stay overnight in the Critical Care Unit to make sure that blood clots didn't stroke me out.

Mood has been stable on my psych-meds. I was even cheerful when I started out, joking around with the nurses. It didn't bother me when they stuck half a dozen needles in me, put me under anesthesia, then woke me up with a hole in the artery in my groin, from where they conducted the artheiogram and installed the stent.

I even survived a sleepness night with tubes running out of both arms, a catheter stuck in my penis, and nurses coming in to check neuro functions every hour. But I hit the wall the next day when I couldn't pee.

To any ladies who have been catheterized: you have no idea how much worse this is for a man. Once they pulled it out, I could not pee at all due to my sphincter involuntarily tensing up when the first drops of urine touched the damaged lining of my urinary tract. I'm not at all sensitive to physical pain, but there's no way you can stop an involuntary muscle reaction to intense pain. Try touching a hot burner without pulling your hand back.

All right, but so far this is stuff I should just have to put up with to get my neurological condition addressed. I know that. So now we get to the real complaint:

When I couldn't pee in the hospital -- and they had no private bathroom available, they wanted me to pee in a jug with my door open -- do you know what those friggin' arseholes wanted to do? STICK A CATHETER BACK IN ME! Then start the whole pain-unable-to-pee cycle all over again.

I finally told them to stuff it, I was going home. And I did, over their objections. I told them they weren't going to cath me again unless they held me down and put a gun to my head. I went home, and in the privacy of my own bathroom, was able to pee again after an hour or so.

I got out of the hospital two days ago, and my mood is still in tatters. My poor wife is a saint to put up with me. I have another artery that needs a stent, but I won't go back to the hospital again!