Julie...i had my surgery done 4 l/2 hrs away from my home so it was necessary to find a stoma nurse in my area. Well i found out there were exactly 4 of them in the city and none of them had experience with the Indiana...most just with ostomies. So i kind of had to teach them. They did however know about rashes and other problems that may come up.
The biggest problem with cathing will be your hesitancy to do it...meaning since the area is completely numb you feel you cannot know when you've gone in enough or too much or other feelings of What if i poke through my bladder...which just made my stoma nurses laugh as they said i'd be the first one to do it!!
Eventually you will get a tactile sensation on your fingers as it goes through the different valves into the pouch and you stop once the outpour starts..sometimes it will stop up due to mucus and you swish it around a bit and more will come out. You'll also be using a saline solution that is prescription for internal use only...read the label...my pharmacy ordered the wrong one once. You will put in about 30cc's after you cath while the cath is still in place and swish the cath around and it either comes back out or not..doesn't matter..it will eventually and it breaks up the mucus. One thing i learned early on was to have 2 types of catheters available. I have the one 14" french 16" long that they gave me at the hospital and then i ordered the coloplast clear soft caths same size. Every once in a while the rigid one decides to not want to go in...not often...but the softer one you can manipulate around and it will get in there. Another one i learned the hard way!! Don't ask! Make sure your uro writes a letter for your insurance company so that all is covered..even the surgilube.
I couldn't wait to get that supra pubic tube out...and then i couldn't wait until i could get 4hrs of sleep!!!
pat