DiaperNewb

You know, interestingly enough, I used to dream about being in diapers and/or having accidents every now and then. But ever since I had surgery and have been in diapers, I don't anymore. I just realized that. Hmmm....

I always feel "the urge," but my ability to hold it is hit or miss. Sometimes I can manage to keep everything at bay long enough to get to a toilet, but often if I can't get there within about a minute it's going into my diaper. I had been having leakage after peeing for about a year before my surgery (like enough to leave a noticeable wet spot in my undies), but ever since I haven't had much luck at all with control. Actually, for the first couple of weeks after surgery, while I still had the stents in my ureters, I had no control at all and didn't feel it until it was coming out. As far as messing goes, it's pretty much the same story. Either I make it or I don't. It took awhile after surgery, but I finally got my bowels back on "schedule," that is, I usually go in the morning and at night. But even then it may hit too fast to hold. My worst incident so far hit me just a few nights ago, actually. I didn't even feel the urge at all until I was messing. It was mostly liquid, and resulted in my first "blowout." However, I'm still happier this way. I mean, I had colostomy bag blowouts usually every couple of months, and small leaks every few days. This was the first comparable incident in 7 months since my surgery, and thankfully I was at home when it hit.

When I was in the hospital following my surgery last October to repair 2 hernias and take-down the colostomy I had in June of 08 due to a ruptured intestine, my mother-in-law explained it to the kids. I would have preferred to tell them myself once I adjusted more after recovery, but they would have been told either way. We aren't trying to pressure him. He doesn't get punished if he goes in his diaper, but gets rewarded for going in the potty. It's just that what he said the other night brought up a factor I honestly hadn't thought of, and I wasn't sure if it was going to become a problem in the long run. He only just turned 3 in November, and boys are slower to get trained than girls, so I'm not freaking out or anything.

So my 3 year old is still having issues with potty training. He still wears diapers full time because he almost never tells us when he needs to go. When I got home from work last night, my wife told me that he did use the potty yesterday evening, and she praised him and told him that it would be awesome if he could go to the potty every time instead of his diapers. Then he hit her with the reply we've both been expecting sooner or later. "But daddy uses diapers." We've already explained (in simple terms) that my surgeries made it so that I don't always make it to the bathroom in time and that I need diapers in case I have an accident, the importance of being a "big kid," and that he won't be able to go to school like his brother and sister if he is still in diapers (but since he won't start until the fall, that threat doesn't hold much power to him right now). Anyone have some advice for us? We didn't have to deal with this with the other two, but it looks like it's going to be a challenge.

Yeah, it was a popular diet way back in high school with a lot of the girls. I remember someone asked this girl in my German class how she could stand it, and she said that most of it didn't really taste like anything, but that the cinnamon and apples was the best.

I never have either. In fact, I don't really want to go there. So I'll hand in a man ca- oh wait, I got rid of those a long time ago Actually, I would go there with my wife. Because she wants to go there, because she likes teh boobez. So she gets 10 Awesome Cards. But this will never happen, since she is afraid to indulge in her curiosities. So I get 1 Flaccid Card.

My wife and I have been going over this for a few weeks now. When we go to the store and I need to get diapers, I try to bury the package with other things we are buying. On occasions where I only needed to get diapers and a few little things, I'll toss my coat over it in the cart. Where we really got into an argument was a couple of weeks ago when Walgreen's had their store-brand on sale (they're surprisingly good). There's a gal I used to work with at another job that works there now, and she was stocking stuff in the same aisle. I wouldn't go get the diapers, I just kept walking around the store until she went somewhere else. My wife kept telling me to just get over it, that it was no different than her buying pads. I told her that it was completely different, because it wouldn't come as any kind of shock to anyone with a set of functioning eyes to see that she is female and thus needs pads. She told me that eventually everyone is going to find out that I wear diapers so I might as well just stop trying to sneak around. I know I need diapers. I know that wearing them is far less embarrassing than having an accident without wearing one would be. But, I think it's the stigma that goes along with adult diapers in this country. They are "supposed" to be for little old ladies and people with physical limitations/mental health problems that can't take care of themselves. Anyone else who uses them is just some kind of Jerry Springer Show psycho. My wife jokes with me about my "playing baby," but to others they would seriously think something like that. I'm a very private person anyway, and it takes me a bit to warm up to new people. And only a few of my very closest friends know me well enough to know that I'm TG. For the 15 months that I had a colostomy, I only ever told maybe 3 people about it, and 2 of them didn't understand it at all anyway. But I have told no one about my diapers. If there are diapers in my cart and I see someone I know coming, I will panic and try to hide. Because I am afraid. For some reason, having a friend or coworker know that I wear diapers is unbearable. I think it's because the society we live in has taught me to feel this way, that we should be ashamed of the things about ourselves that are not "normal," even if we require these things to live or if they are essential to who we are as individuals.

Seeing as how I work at a prison, I can totally answer this! Most of the guys that we have that are fully incontinent are the ones with terminal cancer who live in the infirmary. However, there have been cases of inmates developing or already having continence problems, and they get those lovely "hospital" diapers, which are the paper thin, blue-plastic backed ones like you usually see in a hospital or nursing home. They get them from the Clinic, and since it falls under "chronic care," they don't have to pay for them (yeah, it sucks, especially since most of us who are incontinent can't get our insurance to consider diapers a legitimate medical expense). Anyone who needs diapers would get however much would be considered a week's supply and keep them in their cells, just like the medications they are allowed to keep. If they had to go to the clinic every time they needed to be changed, it would be a nightmare, since there are many times throughout the day when no inmates can go ANYWHERE, and the night shift has virtually no inmate movement except inmates that work in the kitchen or laundry. I don't actually know of any inmates offhand who wear diapers at the moment, but unless they get classified as MAX custody, they'll get a cellmate unless they go to the hole. I do know for a fact that we had a guy come into our intake unit awhile back who had a colostomy, and he had a cellmate. There is also a case where an inmate is having such high-risk mental health issues (or because they are causing serious/dangerous problems), that they can be placed in a restraint bed in the infirmary (as deemed necessary by the Mental Health staff). They're also stripped, so they get some naked time, but since the nurses in the clinic really don't want to deal with bedpans (and since a lot of these guys throw/play in pee and poo anyway) they just stick them in a diaper while they are in the bed. **EDIT** You know, I'm guessing that most inmates who need diapers would just request Protective Custody, which is voluntarily having themselves moved to Segregation (the hole). Either out of fear of humiliation or of being harassed/beat up because of it.

Actually, the true origin of "mad as a hatter" is still an open debate. The process of using mercury to treat felt to make hats started in the mid-18th century; however, the phrase itself predates this as far back as the the 12th century. "Hatter" is generally accepted as being a mistranslation of the Anglo-Saxon word for "Adder." So it would be more along the lines of "mad as a snake." Hey look, I remembered a useless fact from my Early World History course. The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland is insane, but he doesn't have any symptoms of mercury poisoning. Anyway, back on topic, I'd vote for food poisoning. The isolated incidents in which my wife had a messy accident were due to food poisoning. Same thing can happen to people allergic to shellfish.

If for whatever reason you are fortunate enough to make it to the toilet on time (or, for those of us that aren't incontinent, if you have no other choice but to use a toilet for some reason): 10 Greatest Places to Poop! No joke, I actually poo'd myself laughing at #3.

So I went to work the other day and was being processed in by security. I came in, put all my junk in one of the plastic boxes (field jacket, duty belt, diaper bag, lunch bag, stab vest, belt buckle, keys, and wallet) and waited my turn to go through the metal detector. The officer that was up front was a guy who doesn't work there every day, but he's there a couple of times a week. As he's going through everything in my box, he holds up my diaper bag and says (loudly), "Hey, what've you got in here?" My bag is a small zippered lunch bag that holds about 5 diapers and that's all I carry in it, so it doesn't weigh much. "Um... just some medical... stuff," I said, hoping I didn't look as nervous as I felt. "Man, it feels like nothin!!" Then, now that he had everyone's attention, he opened it up and looked inside. He must have felt that he tortured me enough, or didn't want to take things far enough to get himself into any trouble, because he didn't even open the bag halfway to check it or make any other remarks. What upset me was that he has searched my bag before and already knew what was in there. Yes, I know that every single thing that goes into a prison is subject to search. I've been working here for 2 years. My bag of ostomy supplies was searched most of the time, but no one really had any idea what they were looking at and never asked. Most officers just open it a little, thumb through it to make sure I don't have any drugs or bombs or anything in there, and call it good. That's all you need to do. It doesn't matter what is in the item you are searching. The only thing that matters is making sure that specific things are not in there. This was just being an asshat. It would be no different than singling out a female officer who carries one of those cute little tampon-carriers that look like a carrying case for reading glasses. Most people wouldn't even do that, since that would be crossing a line and would probably get them fired. Yeah, I wear diapers. I don't have much of a choice. It used to be a "why-does-THAT-turn-me-on" kind of thing that I never really explored, and then it became a necessary part of life. I could justify it as a need by simply raising my shirt and showing the huge glaring scars from 2 surgeries, one of which was an emergency which almost didn't get caught in time or I would have died. But I shouldn't have to. No more than I should have been expected to take off my colostomy bags to show where the gaping hole in my lower abdomen to show why I needed those. Just because I have accepted my situation doesn't mean that I want to openly advertise it. Yes, at some point I'll be found out or maybe trust someone enough to tell them. But even then, it will be on a need-to-know basis only. This bastard knew what he was doing and stood there grinning while he watched me squirm. I just wanted to cry. Instead I volunteered to work the control room of the cellhouse I work in, so that I could sit there and not have to deal with anyone (directly) all day. /rant

Okay, time to share my worst incident ever. Last April, I went in for a Sleep Study. They had trouble stabilizing my O2 stats after my surgery in June '08 when my intestine ruptured (diverticulitis). So I finally had the time to go in for a study. They hooked me up and I laid there playing my DS until I was tired enough to sleep. The tech woke me up at about 3am or so to put the C-PAP on me for the second half of the study. No big deal. An hour or so later, I woke up. Something didn't feel right. I reached down and my colostomy bag was full. Like, it seemed ready to burst. I just gently touched it, which turned out to be the final straw - the seal couldn't take anymore and it popped off my skin barrier. It was completely liquid, and it had poured all over me and the bed. I tried to call for help, but had never tried to talk against air pressure going into my lungs and nothing really came out. Of course, my readings were all over the place because I had woken up and now because I was in a panic. The tech came in and, well, the poor guy did the best he could. The smell was horrible. He got me some towels and I went to the bathroom to try to clean up as best as I could and have a little time to cry over the disaster. Meanwhile, the tech was changing the sheets in the bed, and I could here him doing his best to fight his stomach retching. Finally I put a new bag on (didn't have a spare skin barrier for some reason) and laid down on the freshly cleaned bed to finish the study, since I only had a couple more hours to go. I don't care if I'm stuck in diapers the rest of my life. It still beats the ostomy any day of the week. I thought being diapered would be more embarrassing, but I've had a much easier time since my reversal and need for diapers *fingers crossed* The moral of the story? Don't worry about it. They've seen EVERYTHING.

The only places I've found Chlorophyll and/or Charcoal supplements are Natural Food type places. I haven't seen them in any of the grocery stores or pharmacies around here. I wish I could, because "store" brands would be a lot cheaper.

Since I only make it to the toilet maybe 2 times out of 10, cleanup is usually pretty quick and painless. Toilet paper for most of it (or paper towels if in a public restroom), then wipes to make sure, and it feels soothing as well. Not that there aren't times that it just doesn't seem to ever end, but there's not much you can do about it. I'm supposed to take Metamucil every day, but it tastes kind of gross so I don't drink it more than a few times a week. When I do though, it seems to makes things less sticky and easier to clean up.

My local Walgreens is the only store around here that carries the Depend Fitted Maximum Protection diapers. I think they also carry the Walgreen's diaper, but I'm not sure. Both Walgreens and Kroger carry the Depend Adjustable Underwear (but they make a better pullup than a diaper, though that isn't saying much). Kroger no longer carries any real diapers. I liked the Kroger pullups, but then they went and had to copy the design of the new Depend pullups, which have no stand-up leak guards and completely suck, so now I get the Walmart pullups and/or diapers because they are the only ones left within 30 miles that still have the oh-so important leak guards (a lifesaver for bowel incontinence).