New Every Morning: Absorbent Panties

chrI do not want this to become a pity party for the stroke survivor blog, but it is difficult to share the reality of life with stroke and come off any other way, which I hope, will make evident to you the super-natural quality of the joy, peace, and contentment I experience in spite of ridiculously unfortunate disability.  Well, anyway, I skipped a few days, which means I have a lot to share because stroke isn't like me, it doesn't skip a day.  It accosts me every morning with new and familiar challenges and humiliations.

    My quarterly Botox appointment occurred this week.  I loathe, as well as, love when this pops up on my calendar.  I adore my neurologist and enjoy the chats we have while she repeatedly stabs me with an electrified (The electricity causes the muscle the needle enters to contract allowing for greater accuracy because it allows her to visually determine she'd in the correct muscle based on the part of my arm or hand that is moving before she introduces the toxin into my body.) needle that is wiggled and jiggled around until it enters the correct muscle, and the Botox can be introduced to my ever-contracting muscles forcing them into temporary paralysis and providing me with relief that is similar to the wonderful feeling when you finally get to lie down after a Loooong day of work, you know,  that aaaaaah, nothing ever felt so good feeling, and that is why I get pumped up with this stuff every three months even though I know its the #1 contributor to what I refer to as my "pee problem."  Although the description of the procedure for Botox therapy is one that conjures sympathy from most, it actually doesn't hurt any worse than stubbing your toe, although there are moments when it hurts as bad, and in those, I just repeat over and over to myself, "it will be over before I know it," and it always is, and then, I get to drive home the aaaaaaah of my muscles submitting to toxin induced release.
   I had donned my last Depend while getting ready to go to the doctor, so I had to stop at CVS on my way back into town to restock on what denial mixed with coping humor forces me to refer to as absorbent panties because adult diapers or even Depends are not acceptable vocabulary words for a woman in her thirties, so you wear lace or cotton panties while I wear absorbent panties, and I'm more okay with that on an emotional level.  Its still gross, and I hate it, but I can deal with it on that level a little better.  Most often, I leave this humiliating task to my husband who once returned from it with the report that he was amused that the woman in front of him was also purchasing panties, but you guessed it, they weren't absorbent, but pretty, lacy ones, but really, how pretty could they've been?  After all, he was at Wal-mart, but anyway, on this day I was going to get to experience the humiliation personally and on a whole new level.  For some reason leveling up in this area of life is much less exciting than it is on Candy Crush or other games.  First, my sister-in-law was the cashier who had to try not to notice what she was scanning as I struggled inwardly with whether or not to make direct eye contact and risk having to discuss the item I was purchasing, so I look to my right in avoidance to see my father-in-law standing a few feet away from my Depend purchasing self, and I want to die, well, not die, because then, I'd be there on the ground with my huge value pack of Depends when the paramedics and police came, and I could only imagine the headline in the local paper, "Local woman, age 34, dies while purchasing adult diapers at CVS," so I guess, what I really wanted was to disappear, and then, reappear somewhere private where I could die unobserved from humiliation, but instead, I smiled and pretended that there wasn't anything odd about a woman my age purchasing a product that nursing homes buy in bulk, or actually, they probably buy generic because $15 is a lot  o spend on something you hate, but oh well, if it helps me avoid another zoo birthday party incident, its worth every cent!  You know, you're about to hear another pee story, so come with me to the Mesker Park Zoo, not long after I'd been released from outpatient therapy and began Botox, where I was forced to add absorbent pantie to my vocabulary. 
   Not long after my stroke, it was time to consider preschool options for my daughter, and being an educator myself, this wasn't a simple decision.  I wasn't going to send her to a glorified day care, in fact, if I was going to send her away from home, it had to be a place that offered her something better than I could on my own, so I set my heart on the most educationally blissful environment I could find at the Montessori Academy of Evansville even though my medical bills made the steep tuition a tight squeeze.  Although everyone was super nice and inclusive, the price tag drew a crowd that the small town, country girl in me described as snooty, so when Lili received her first birthday invitation, I RSVP'd knowing I'd feel awkward even in the best elastic waste pant and t-shirt combo that my stroke addled wardrobe could offer, but we arrived to the private room at the Mesker Park zoo just in time for me to spend the entire time hiding in a bathroom stall after having realized something new was going crazily wrong with my body.  I sat on the stool, wet pants around my ankles, tears streaming down my face until Tim missed me and sent someone in to get me.  I honestly do not know how I got from the bathroom to the car, but I did not return to the party, which was mostly over allowing us to easily extract Lili from the festivities without drawing attention to ourselves.  The shame and frustration of that moment are preserved in my mind's museum, and needless to say, i broke down and bought my first pack of absorbent panties after that debacle and since have begun using the drug Toviaz that more successfully dries out my mouth than my pants, but it helps a little and every little bit helps in my battle to function somewhat normally as a productive member of society without becoming a total embarrassment to my growing daughter.  I realize its odd that I feel safe writing and posting this content when its such a shame to me.  I'd like to think its my goodwill toward other stroke survivors facing similar obstacles that frees me rather than a suspicion that my writing isn't good enough for anyone to want to read it.