I’ve written a fair bit recently about my wee troubles. I’ve been going to the toilet all the time. It’s frustrating enough during the day, but at night it’s horrible and adds a whole extra dimension to my sleeplessness.

When I had my bladder scanned recently they found it was twitching and moving about without me asking it to (much like every other part of my body). There’s medication I can take to tame it, but the consultant warned me that this might make emptying it harder, so he wanted to see if using a catheter would be possible for me instead.

This morning Fran, Lily and I met the specialist nurse. I’m going abroad next week and sensibly the nurse didn’t want to risk me getting an infection while I was away. So instead of teaching me how to catheterise she gave me a device called the Queen Square Bladder Stimulator.

To use it, you place the vibrating gadget on your skin over the bladder area while you wee, and for a little bit afterwards too. It stimulates the bladder and hopefully makes the urine come out more easily. I described it to Fran as a cheerleader for my wee. I’ve used it a few times now and I think it may be helping a little.

My next challenge is to find somewhere discreet to keep it. I’m aware that it would be very easy for my new gadget to be mistaken for a more racy vibrating device.