As if feeling sick wasn’t bad enough, incontinence makes being sick so much worse.
It was supposed to be a nice day trip, exploring historic Southern Maryland with my family. But my stomach — and my bladder! — had other plans. Hit with a sudden bout of food poisoning, I stumbled into a public restroom stall, relieved that I had made it before I vomited. Relieved for a moment, that is, until I realized there was no way I could throw up. Not here, not now, not like this.
I was so worried about this because I suffer from stress incontinence. Standing over a toilet and heaving would put my bladder under more stress than it could handle. If I threw up in the wrong position, I’d urinate all over myself, and I hadn’t brought a change of clothing with me. I couldn’t do it, no way.
Then again, my stomach couldn’t have cared less about my dignity.
An illness that causes nausea, coughing, or sneezing is miserable for anyone, but for me, stress incontinence makes being sick so much worse. Those symptoms put stress on my bladder, causing it to leak slightly but uncontrollably.
Not only do I feel horrible from the illness itself, but I have to worry about embarrassing myself as well. Especially since it’s not something I want anyone to know about. I don’t want to discuss it, not with my doctors and not with my family. I just want to keep my problems to myself, or better yet, to not have them at all.
The day trip debacle wasn’t the only time that stress incontinence multiplied the indignities of being ill. Last year, I had pneumonia and was coughing constantly; I was confined to my bed and too sick to go to the store to buy protection pads. There was no way that I was going to ask a family member to do it for me, so I ordered them next-day from Amazon. Sure, it cost a bit more, but the boost to my dignity was worth it. (Until, of course, Amazon based so many recommendations off that purchase that I thought I’d never hear the end of it!)
I’m not sure why a condition that is so common is so embarrassing. It’s not under my control. My incontinence is a result of the type 1 diabetes I’ve had for more than 30 years, which affects the nerves in my urinary tract, weakening my bladder’s resistance to stress. To top things off, a pregnancy worsened the condition, as it does in many women.
Why is something that affects 30-40 percent of middle-aged women harder to talk about than pregnancy, diabetes, or my period? Maybe because none of those other conditions has ever led me to a bathroom stall, frantically trying to find a way to avoid coming out covered in urine or vomit or both (a fate I was narrowly able to avoid on that trip, thank goodness).
Sometimes it feels like my body is conspiring against me. Even a simple cold turns into something that needs to be carefully managed when it’s stacked on top of diabetes and stress incontinence. I wish that I didn’t have to bring protection pads with me when I travel or pack extra clothes in the car for unplanned emergencies.
But then again, my body is just like anything else I value: it needs to be treated right. I did eventually talk to my doctor, and he was able to give me some good advice. Although I can’t easily rid myself of stress incontinence, I can reduce its impact through weight loss, yoga, and other strengthening exercises. I can carefully control my blood sugar to reduce additional nerve damage. And I can be thankful that, despite its embarrassing quirks, my body treats me as well as it does.
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