Sunday Stroke Survival: An Incontence Nightmare

Today it's raining. That's not a bad thing normally. We needed the rain for our orchard and garden areas. But today it has been horrible!

My first stroke deadened the sensory nerves to my peritoneal area. It some of the only sensory nerves that were damaged. Other than the right side of my face and a spot on my outer thigh, all of my other sensory nerves are in tact. Thus, the normal sensation of having to go to the bathroom is dulled. I actually rely on a tug around my belly button area to tell me I have to go if I'm not going by the clock. This creates a gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now situation. I'll start dribbling within a couple of minutes.

Going by the clock isn't always convenient. I could be anywhere on our cleared half acre property when this occurs. If I'm down on the lower tier of the orchard, it means getting on the yard tractor, riding up the terraces, getting off the tractor, climbing four steps, making my way through the house, and then getting my pants/shorts and underwear down before I can sit on the commode. I often don't make it before soaking my underwear and bottoms. This is even with wearing  a pad. You can't do a lot of these actions with your legs crossed to help contain the flow.

Oh no! Not math!

Add Lasix, a powerful diuretic, to the mix and you've got compound interest added. I take this diuretic to keep fluid away from compressing my heart. Without it, my body will hold over 13 pounds of fluid. It will back up in my lungs and squeeze my heart in a very unloving embrace throwing me into congestive heart failure. My cardiologist recently increased my daily dose of this drug because it wasn't pulling enough fluids out of my body. To give you an idea of how much fluid extra fluid I was carrying around, I lost 26 lbs in the first 48 hours! A gallon of fluid weighs about 8.3 lbs or 3.7 kg for my non US readers. You do the calculations for 26 lbs to kg. Any way you look at it, it's a lot of fluid via peeing. I was rarely more than ten steps away from the bathroom for hours. Any distance over ten steps requires bathing and a lower wardrobe change.

The increased Lasix did such a good job of keeping me out of heart failure, my cardiologist decided to keep me on the higher dose. I should be thankful, I could have been hospitalized. But the increased dosage of Lasix also puts additional strain on my poorly functioning kidneys too.

Now everyone knows that the sound running water will make you have to urinate. I'm no exception. Half an hour after I take my morning meds, which includes my Lasix, I'm sitting here around the corner from a bathroom awaiting my day at the races. It's raining outside and I'm making a hobbling sprints to the bathroom. Two hours later, after my fifth trip and one lower wardrobe change, it's still raining and my roommate decides to do a load of laundry. Now, I'm off again. I am sure to empty my bladder each time I go.

Everything gets put on hold. On today's chore list is making and canning tomato sauce. Just what I need...more running water. This time from the kitchen sink. I feel that familiar tug near my belly button. Dropping the two-gallon bag of frozen tomatoes on the counter and I'm off. I've got a choice of  because I'm between two bathrooms. I just make into Mel's master bathroom. Because of a Pavlov's dog type of conditioning, now just seeing the toilet starts a slow release of urine. I have to time the removal of my panties and be seated on the toilet, or be cleaning up the dribbled mess afterwards.

Drat, my poor damaged brain!

I wash my hand and reach for the hand towel. It wasn't hanging on the rack. Doh! Mel was doing her laundry. The idea of sticking my wet hand in the towel closet to retrieve a new one just didn't seem right. Besides, I would disturb her "pet" spider that lived there. He  is only four inches across. I have this relationship with nonpoisonous spiders, I don't bother

them unless they bother me. If Mel wanted to keep a spider in her bathroom linen closet, then she'd have to deal with the cobwebs. Then, I remembered I was going to stick my hand in water any way. I just shook the excess water from my hand and returned to the kitchen.

I grabbed the bag of frozen tomatoes and dumped them in the sink half full of water and grabbed another bag from the freezer. After dumping them into the basin, I swished them around with my hand. Mistake, a tug at my navel again. It had been less than twenty minutes since my last sojourn to the porcelain throne. This time I went to my bathroom. It was only a few steps more. My bladder couldn't be full again.

Once again, I'm hit with the dribbling stream at the sight of the toilet. I'd definitely have to change pads. My bladder was full. I returned to the kitchen. The tomatoes were slipping their skins and I placed them in a colander and refilled the sink with two more  two-gallon bags of tomatoes. I had twelve bags to do in total. I was then squeezing the tomatoes out of their skins and into my 16-qt stock pot to cook down.

My garden has been very productive this year. All of them had to be sauced today because of a half split of lamb was going into the freezer in two days. I didn't want to wait until the last minute to do the tomatoes because sauce takes time to make it good. I usually do this during winter when the heat and humidity are appreciated more. Better to do them before something else came up besides running to the bathroom.

Prime cuts of lamb

About the lamb,  a local, no chemical, pastured raised sheep operation cut me a deal on a split for less than $4 a lb. I may look crazy, but I ain't totally bonkers. I jumped at it.  With the lamb, I had no choice about doing the tomatoes. Plus, I'll get all the off cut like the pancreas, brains, kidneys, tongue, and intestines. When cooked right, these off cuts are a high dollar food in restaurants and I know how. The intestines will be washed, cleaned, and frozen in brine for breakfast sausage casings. The long bones will make excellent bone broth and dog bones later. I'll get them for almost free considering he discounted the lamb by $2 a pound for me. It sure beats the $6 or more a lb store prices. Fall lambs are not as tender as spring lambs, but to me there's little difference.

So for now, I'm weathering the storm literally and figuratively.

Nothing is impossible.