Incontinence at a High School Reunion
She leaned over our table, physically planting herself into the conversation, and said in a hoarse whisper, “For years I thought I was the only one with this problem! But now I’m hearing about it everywhere.” She had glommed on to the subject when I mentioned that my CV included a stint working for an adult diaper supplier. I could not believe how relieved she was to be talking about the subject of incontinence.
I was at a high school reunion, meeting up with a long time unseen and dear friend from those hallowed teen years. Sherry B. was a delight and surprise to see. The two of us had spent many after-school hours together, working at the DQ, sweating out Algebra assignments and struggling with Prom decisions. Sadly, as friendships of that life era go, we quickly fell out of touch when we went our separate college ways. I had heard of her Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis through my mother only a few years later and often guiltily wondered how she was coping but never made the effort to contact her across the continent. I guess in my imaginings I thought she would never be able to make it to this event. But there she sat, with a cane on each side and a grin as broad as ever.
After our initial hugs and exclamations, Sherry and I showed each other pictures of our families and moved on to the subject of what our typical days looked like, with the last of the teenagers getting ready to fledge. I told her of my recent experience in elder care products and this is when she grabbed the opportunity to talk about the humiliation she first experienced with loss of bladder control. It was like I was her high school confidante all over again, that the decades between us had never transpired.
“Imagine trying to hide your stash of adult diapers from your teenage kids and their friends”, she said with a slight smile, “You know how teenagers are always looking to make a joke out of anything. I live in a small ranch with one bathroom. There’s not a lot of hiding places.” She drew a damp circle on her napkin with a coffee stirrer. “I can’t tell you the shame and fear I felt when I first realized that I had lost control of such a basic function. But you know, it was my kids who really helped me push beyond that. They really needed me to.”
“So now it seems the whole world, or at least all of cable TV, is talking about adult diapers, pull-ups and pads. There are even weirdoes on talk shows telling how they wear this stuff for kicks. And here you are, telling me that you are in the business. What’s going on here?” she asked.
At that moment, my admiration for my dear long-neglected friend almost pushed me to tears. While listening to her talk, I had been imagining what it could possibly have been like for her, raising those three smiling, rowdy boys to young manhood as her photo album testified, never knowing next what wrench her MS would toss into the works. How dull and uncomplicated my life must have seemed to her in comparison. Instead she waited, genuinely wanting me to answer her question. So I indulged her with my usual professional breeze of statistics about the graying of America and the rising demand for adult diapers.
With a projected 147% increase of citizens 65 and older in the first half of this century, and with the promise of increased longevity, this means a lot more people have already begun to size up adult diapers than ever before. Incontinence can strike people from all walks of life and of all ages but it is the increase of an aging population that is bringing the topic to the public forefront. I assured Sherry that she was on the cutting edge of this wave because of her positive attitude and that she should not be shy about it. She should share her voice on the subject of incontinence. Start blogging or podcasting, getting the word out. I was on a roll, handing her PR assignments.
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.