I'm new to blogging but I have to have somewhere to shout my frustrations. I'm a man too young to be called "middle aged" and too old to be considered young and I have chronic urinary incontinence. It's a tough thing to say out loud, but it's easier to type it out.
It affects men way less than women. Only 1.5-3% of men will have it in their life (if I have my facts straight). So I will be focusing on just the guy side of the waterworks.
I'll probably be rambling on this... who knows. I might never update past this post. I doubt anyone will ever even stumble upon it, so this is ok. I can have my moment of solace and anonymity in this crazy world.
Besides my parents, 1 sister and one ex... I have never told anyone about my condition. I have tried my whole life to mask this life of "everything is ok" while the boat is on fire and sinking...
I guess my story begins when I was younger. I had problems wetting the bed since I was young. Once I could control that I began to have no issues getting up to use the bathroom... I just always had this slight leak.
When I was in my teens I guess it was semi-socially acceptable to wear underwear to bed. I know they sell goodnites and the like for a reason. It just get's tiresome when you are in your 20's and 30's. When will this end?
My experience so far with doctors has not been good in correcting my condition. When I was in my teens I was prescribed a "fast cath". A catheter without a balloon. I was instructed to jam a tube down my peehole every hour for almost a year... it wasn't the problem.
I had and still have no problems urinating. I can keep up a good stream and I have a sense of "finishing". I even told the doctor that... but after a year of using a fast cath, trying to sneak in and out of stalls between class and hope-and-pray I don't get caught, I began to cut corners.
I wasn't wearing the glove, or using the lubricating jelly... and I was rushing it.Eventually I got a pretty bad urinary tract infection close to my bladder. That made problems worse.
By the time I was in college, I was either wearing a catheter, diapers, sanitary pad and dehydrating the crap out of myself. It was a careful balance and it totally killed any "fun times in college" for me. Was pretty solitary.
Fast forward to today. I have a good job, I've managed to keep sane this long. I'm in my 30's now and from everything I've read online I've got a lot of support, but no one I've met yet is in the same boat as me.
I have it easier than most. I'm still able to walk and I don't have cancer, so I'm not complaining (ok, caught me, I'm still going to bitch, lol). Just looking for a place to dump info and maybe get some tips from random people on the internet... because that can never go wrong.. right?
So, "Hello". You can call me Bill.
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