Sunday Stroke Survival ~The Three Ps: Pee, Pads,and Pubic Hair

Being a lady, only lately, has incontinence been openly talked about. To me, nothing is totally sacred and taboo so I talk about it openly. Today there are a million commercials on television about urinary incontinence. Bladder control or uncontrolled is no longer a hush-hush subject. Although going out in public with urine soaked panties is still embarrassing. It's a dignity issue.

After a stroke, everyone sees the paralyzed limbs or hears the monotone or hesitant speech. But not many give thought to the unseen muscles that are paralyzed also within the body. The conscious effort a stroke survivor does to exercise these muscles to restore them or work around them like the throat, bowels, peritoneal, and the diaphragm. Those are are hidden inside. We strive for control and sometimes fail.

I make no secret about my urinary control issues over the past year and before. It's a natural process of the body and an integral functioning part. In computer lingo it's GIGO (garbage in garbage out). If you put food and liquids into the body it has to process the waste somehow.

I loss feeling or sensory deficits in very few places with my stroke and I am lucky. I didn't feel this way a year ago when I had my stroke, but now I'm grateful. Sure I walk around with the right side of my face full of Novocaine slightly wearing off. You know the sensation when it isn't the big lip but can't quite feel anything either. Yep that's the one. It make chewing an adventure. My coughing has changed. My husband who is 90% deaf can't hear me yell for help but comes running when I cough now from another room. I'll end up with bruises on my outer right leg and have no idea how I got them. But the most irritating loss is the sensation of having to pee without having to shift my body weight. Being unable to distinguish whether I have to urinate or defaecate is only a mild irritation since I'm on the commode already.

I transitioned from catheter to diapers to pads in a few short weeks. For this I'm forever thankful! Diane over at the Pink House blog still deals with these issues. While I may deal with these issues with my own DH (darling hubby), it's not a continuous issue like with her yet. She now blogs about clogged and catheter explosions.

I even save money buying menstrual pads now because of greater control. But have yet to transition to panties liners. Another huge step to work on. I still have the occasional accident but I am doing better. Now that I'm out and about more causes me to look where the bathrooms are anyplace I am to judge the distance, and the time needed to get there just in case.

With pads there are drawbacks because they really aren't meant to be worn day in and day out for a years. I've had diaper rashes because of the waterproof liners. While my children were in diapers they occasionally experienced this problem. I would coo and commiserate with their pain as I treated it. I was too young to remember my own bouts.

Until recently that is. Is anything more uncomfortable than a burning, itching, painful rash between the legs? Do you run to the doctor for it? Would you have someone else apply diaper rash medicine? It hurts to sit. It hurts to stand. It hurts when taking a step. It even hurts when you are lying down. Yeah some of you know what I'm talking about. The rest of you are just lucky. I recently saw a commercial for Balmex for adults. What a relief! It's not only me! If they are advertising it there must be millions.

The last thing in the title I wanted to address is pubic hair. (No, I wouldn't think about adding a picture) Yes, this is a risque subject sort of, but hey, I have very few taboos. Over at Amy Shissler's stroke blog earlier this month there was an interesting discussion on gray hair that took a turn to hilarious thanks to Barb Polan, Dean and I. The discussion turned from Amy finding her first gray hair, she's only 32, to balding, to finding your first gray pubic hair. I mentioned that the adhesive strips on my pads have made bald patches on my pubis. Why pay out huge amounts of money for bikini waxes...just get pads. The adhesive strips on those things will pull out hair follicles! So save money and use pads!

Yes, I'm starting a new trend... the polka dotted pub.

Nothing is impossible with determination

Sunday Stroke Survival~ Diaper, Pads and Back Again

Today, I'm talking about urinary incontinence and how life moves in a circular pattern. As a young child. you are toilet trained and you get out of diapers. When puberty hits, for a woman, you transition into pads for menstrual cycles.

All the wear and tear of child bearing years, just when you think you are getting ready to lose the pads forever, you sometimes develop leaks. So you add an occasional urinary pads, because when you laugh to hard or sneeze you lose bladder control.

For me, it was five tumors in my lower abdomen which caused the problem. Once they were removed with all my rusted old pipes of reproduction, part of my bladder, and my colon along with them. A mesh sling was implanted to prevent the bladder leaks. I was a happy camper. The tumors were thought to be the size of walnuts, before surgery, were actually the size of my surgeon's fist... all five of them. I survived. Extremely thankful it wasn't worse. No more bladder worries, I was done.

A funny things happens when you think you are done. You're not. I suffered a stroke and had to relearn a bathroom schedule like I did while my own children were potty training. I was back in diapers to prevent accidents on a much larger bottom than when I was a child. Restricting liquids for a period of time before bed and watching a clock. Every two hours I journey to the commode whether I feel the need or not. That's just to get out of diapers.

That tingling sensation I used to get as markers that I had to go was gone. I do feel a heavy weighted pressure in my lower abdomen when I shift positions as an indicator. But gone are the sensations that distinguish between a bowel movement and a full bladder.

So unless I fidget in my chair, think shifting your weight from one butt cheek to another, I cannot tell when nature calls until it is almost too late. I'd gotten so good at it that I transitioned to menstrual pads again versus the thick urinary pads within a week of being home from the hospital.

 Within a two month honeymoon of having my stroke, my heart started acting up again. I honestly loved that honeymoon period. For all extents and purposes, my heart was behaving like a normal, healthy heart. It was something I hadn't experienced for over half a decade. I was on no arrhythmia medicines and no diuretics.

I call it a honeymoon because it was joyful and short-lived. I figure it was God's Grace because He knows how much I can handle at one time. Dealing with chronic congestive hearty failure because your ticker isn't working right and a stroke was more than I could handle thus a honeymoon.

The first indicator that something was wrong was I stopped losing weight. The second was my paralyzed side started swelling. I'm not talking about a little bit of swelling. I'm talking about gross swelling. Fingers the size of hot dogs and toes like Vienna sausages. Hands and wrists the size of the incredible Hulk. I had to have my AFO widened and put a 9 1/2 shoe on a normal size 6 foot. Even the Velcro on my splints groaned in protest.

So far I've gone from diapers, potty training, pads to diapers, potty training to pads again. Now compounding or hampering my successful feeling is a diuretic. My cardiologist's choice was heavy doses of Lasix for the first two weeks then a daily maintenance dose. I dropped thirteen pounds in three days. That's how much fluid I was retaining in my body. Almost 90% of it in the paralyzed side.

What does Lasix do to a bathroom schedule? It shoots it full of holes! I was getting up every twenty minutes and going to the bathroom during the first four hours during the heavy dosing. I almost wanted to be back in diapers for all the underwear I flooded. But vanity wouldn't allow that. I just kept a stash of granny panties in the bathroom cabinet.

Now the dose has been backed down to a maintenance dose so it isn't that bad...only one hour like the poor kitty to the right. Twenty steps to the bathroom, a couple of minutes to snatch my pants and panties down one-handed, and I'm set.

In spite of all my efforts, I still pee my pants or dribble. It's a no win scenario. So what do I have to look forward to in the future as I continue aging...just more of the same. Life runs in full circles like driving donuts in a parking lot with your automobile. I doesn't stop until you run out of gas.