Crossing the Incontinental Divide
“Can you imagine?!” she whispered hoarsely as she leaned toward me over her coffee. “For years I thought I was the only one with this problem.” The mixture of fervor and relief in her voice was palpable. I had simply mentioned to my old friend in passing that I was working for an adult diapers distributor and she took this as her cue to unburden about her struggle with incontinence.
We were sitting in some worn cafeteria chairs at a high school reunion neither of us thought we would manage to make. But here I was, seated beside my dear high school confidante, Sherry B. Why I had never made the effort to get in touch with her during the lapsed decades was beyond me. She was such a vibrant soul, despite the physical changes that were impossible to ignore. So many youthful friendships are dropped at the end of high school when everyone goes off in different directions, there was nothing unusual about this case either. But perhaps back when I was about 20 and my mother mentioned that Sherry had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I just didn’t know what to do with the news and wouldn’t touch the distance between us. But here was Sherry with canes clipped to her arms and sporting the same old broad grin as ever.
It was hard to believe that she could treat me with the same comfort and ease as she had when we were each other’s high school confidantes. But there she was, poring with unfeigned interest over the little family photo album I had brought, that mandatory accessory at these functions. And I found hers equally interesting, a photo essay of three small strawberry blonde boys playing in a backyard splash pool to three strikingly handsome young men showing off their Jeeps and girlfriends. “You would think by now I would be done with the diaper scene,” Sherry gave a little snort. “But now I am caught up in the world of adult diapers.”
“I can’t tell you what I went through up here,” she tapped her forehead with an angular finger, “when I first realized that peeing my pants was something I was simply going to have to live with. To lose control over something most babies master by the age of two and a half is downright frightening, not to mention humiliating.” She looked me square in the eye and said with a laugh, “I had to learn to let go of letting go and get on with the rest of my life. Thank goodness for the internet. Buying feminine products at the drugstore was one thing, buying adult diapers is another.”
“After all the pain and agony I went through at first, thinking I was the only one with this problem, now it seems everywhere in magazines and on television there are ads for incontinence products. And even you being the business. What gives with that?” she asked.
I wish Sherry could understand how much respect I had for her, after looking at those pictures. I wondered how she managed to deal with raising those three little boys to where they are now, while coping with whatever wrench her MS unpredictably threw into the works. She had managed to steer clear of self-absorption; her children, her travelling here today, her interest in my family, all testified to this strength. How dull I was in comparison. And as dullards will do, I launched into systematically answering her question about America’s growing incontinence concerns. I thought she needed to know why she didn’t have an exclusive corner on adult diapers market.
In fact, the first half of this century will see a 147% rise in the number of citizens who are 65 and older. Combine that with an increasing life expectancy and the aging complication of incontinence and it is not hard to understand why there is growing publicity of incontinence care products. People from all stations in life can experience incontinence and will have to deal with the prejudices that ensue. I told Sherry she could consider herself avant-garde with her frankness and uplifting attitude. There was a public out there hungry to hear her overcoming voice and she needed to start blogging and podcasting it. I was in my PR mode without a thought to Sherry’s receptiveness.
Thank goodness I stopped to take a breath. It was then that I noticed that my friend was fading in her chair. She had not flown hundreds of miles, enduring airports and airplanes with her two canes and a wheelchair to have someone tell her how she needed to champion a cause. She was here to gain strength from some familiar old faces she recognized from a time when she had known fewer cares. And what she was wanting right this moment was a guiding hand on her wheel chair on the way to the ladies’ room. “Just wheel it to the door and dump the cripple in,” she instructed. I stopped in my tracks, stunned at her words, until I caught a glimpse of her teasing smirk. Attitude is everything and Sherry, baby, you’ve got the right stuff.
