I spend my nights in the hospital so naturally I am always on call. The nurses wake me up first. Every time I go to see a patient in the emergency room my heart is pounding in my chest. First I examine the patient. Silently I ask myself all the questions, trying to arrange them in my mind.

Then the same act: “Nurse, take the patient’s blood pressure again and check his temperature.” I calmly open the door, step into the corridor as if I am heading to the bathroom and then I dive into my room. Thick medical books are resting on the table in the middle of the room, some open, some stuffed with notes. I rifle through them in a panic.

With scrap notes in my pocket and the names of the right medicine in my head, I go back to see the patient, drying my hands as if I had just come out of the bathroom.

It is a cold winter day. Midnight. A north wind swirling around all corners. All the other doctors are on extended leave for the holiday. I’m the only one in the hospital. They pull me out of a deep sleep. The patient was brought to the hospital in a tractor from a faraway village. He’s a middle-aged man, fat and olive-skinned, and he can’t urinate. As if guilty of a crime, he says, squirming:

“Doctor, forgive me but I’ve been a wreck for the last three days. Pardon me for saying this, but I can’t pee …” After examining him, I decide to give him a catheter. The patient’s willing to try anything as long as he’s relieved of the pain. I ask him to lie down and then I nervously insert the catheter. No urine. Did I put it in the wrong way? Now I’m dripping in sweat.

But it really isn’t all that bad. Handan is the nurse on duty. I have a soft spot for her.

I look at her as if to say, “what do we do now?” The patient is still moaning, “Oh God, just do something, doctor.” For this kind of condition there is only one other option. I’ve seen the procedure once during my internship, but I’ve never done it myself. Insert a needle through the lower abdomen and into the bladder and then drain the urine.

I decide to go for it. I ask the patient to lie down and check the precise location of his bladder before I apply a local anesthetic, then I slowly insert the tube from top to bottom. I have a tight grip on it—I can’t let go. My heart is racing. What if I puncture his intestines or another organ? Minutes seem to last forever. Nothing. No urine. Oh my God. What do I do know? Then Handan says in a gentle voice:

“Doctor, just let go. Don’t worry.”

I look at her face. She leans closer, whispering:

“Don’t worry. Just let go.”

The tube has entered the patient’s bladder but I am holding onto it so tightly I am obstructing the passage. I let go. Seconds later urine begins to flow and the patient lets out a deep sigh.