Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[Newbee]

12 hours ago, oznl said:

Yes.  ABU has (regrettably) fallen off my menu due to prohibitively high shipping costs to QLD.  A single "half case" to Brisbane is $30 shipping.  A "full case" is $60 (twice the half case price) which doesn't seem to make any sense as there should be some greater efficiency there.

I realise that fuel costs are through the roof but these prices are way out in front of other vendors.  It's also a little bewildering to me as to why they've been "working on" fixing the shipping price calculation bungles for non-mixed cases on their website for literally years now with no discernible progress.  Perhaps they are not even aware that their shipping prices are borked and just serve the local Melbourne market.

Yea I do not order from abu as they charge me $30 for delivery and I’m in NSW the cost of shipping is horrible 

[Puppyz]

12 hours ago, Newbee said:

Yea I do not order from abu as they charge me $30 for delivery and I’m in NSW the cost of shipping is horrible 

Delivery to regional QLD is a deal breaker for me. As well as the extra wait time which can blow out to over a week lately, makes planning a delivery really hard as I work away for weeks at a time :S

[oznl]

23 hours ago, Puppyz said:

Yeah I'm happy to be in my $30 for 14 Molicares. Even with a double Lillee or whatever brand booster, It's an extra 30c or so for each wearing which is around 2 a day. 

Are they the old greenish, plastic backed Molicares?  I used to use those when I first started out but it was definitely a "3 per day" scenario.  I think I've still got a packet or two lurking somewhere in the cupboard but I just can't see them pulling a 12 hour shift even with a booster or two.  What's your experience?

[Puppyz]

11 hours ago, oznl said:

Are they the old greenish, plastic backed Molicares?  I used to use those when I first started out but it was definitely a "3 per day" scenario.  I think I've still got a packet or two lurking somewhere in the cupboard but I just can't see them pulling a 12 hour shift even with a booster or two.  What's your experience?

They're currently blue but used to purple/mauve. Very little sap content so they actually wick fairly well. 

They're certainly no ABDL nappy, probably more on par with an Abena M/L4.

For general day to day use they get me by,  but add in a beer session and all bets are off. 2 gets me by but only just. I'm not a huge drinker of anything during the day apart from 2 large flat whites in the morning/ish and normal water intake. 3 a day would probably be a better option for me that would come with a certain amount of wastage.

[Little Sherri]

I don't understand the economics behind the plethora of low-end medical diapers out there that, as as been noted, were designed to tickle the pleasure centers of accountants and purchasers, and not to serve the unfortunates condemned to life in them. I used to work tangentially with long-term care centers, and here's the thing: by far their greatest cost is labour, and after that, utilities are a close contender, by which I mean water and energy used to heat water, as well as the energy used to dry linens, and then, cleaning and sanitation chemicals. 

When a diaper leaks and soils clothing, or a bed, or even a purpose-built medi-pad absorbent liner of the type often placed centrally on bedding to catch such incidents, a series of events ensue: the patient has to be changed, which sometimes involves shifting them, which has risks, and may require more than one attendant, depending on their condition. Then, either their clothing and the bedding have to get stripped, or, the medi-pad gets thrown into the laundry, and replaced. Or, a disposable medi pad is used that costs almost as much as the $1 diaper. 

Eventually, all the linens or medi-pads or a mix of both are aggregated in a laundry area and transported down to the laundry room, or, put on trucks and sent to a textile care company. The stuff gets handled multiple times by multiple people, treated with chemicals, bathed in hot water, rinsed, and then dried, folded, stacked, transported back up to the unit... lots of steps, lots of time, lots of things that cost money. So I'm not convinced that a $3.00 diaper costs three times as much as a $1.00 diaper, in real dollars. And if that $1 diaper leaks twice a day, or if it has to be changed four times a day to reduce the incidence of leaks... would not two $3.00 diapers cost less overall, and be more comfortable for the person who has to marinade in them? 

If a giant long-term care provider negotiated the purchase of millions of dollars worth of Megamax's or whatever, I'm sure their per-diaper cost would come down substantially from what I pay when I buy them one case at a time. 

I think this has a lot to do with people having conflicting KPI's, and the left hand not knowing that the right hand is plotting against it. Ergo, Michelle in Purchasing is looking forward to getting 120% of her bonus, because she just renewed an amazing deal for truck loads of undergarments made out of recycled garbage bags stuffed with sawdust from a company that makes caskets for pets. Meanwhile, Dave over in the building management division is getting raked over the coals because their hot water and gas consumption is ticking up, and Linda who runs the laundry has been running behind schedule, is overbudget on overtime, and also overbudget on laundry chemicals. Sadie the octogenarian has terminal diaper rash from being in constant contact with wet pet casket dust, and Greg, the nursing supervisor, is being asked to fill out reports on what they are going to do about it, within the confines of the 40 minutes a day allotted for Sadie's care. Michelle in purchasing is thinking about buying a cottage. 

[oznl]

6 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I think this has a lot to do with people having conflicting KPI's, and the left hand not knowing that the right hand is plotting against it. Ergo, Michelle in Purchasing is looking forward to getting 120% of her bonus, because she just renewed an amazing deal for truck loads of undergarments made out of recycled garbage bags stuffed with sawdust from a company that makes caskets for pets. Meanwhile, Dave over in the building management division is getting raked over the coals because their hot water and gas consumption is ticking up, and Linda who runs the laundry has been running behind schedule, is overbudget on overtime, and also overbudget on laundry chemicals. Sadie the octogenarian has terminal diaper rash from being in constant contact with wet pet casket dust, and Greg, the nursing supervisor, is being asked to fill out reports on what they are going to do about it, within the confines of the 40 minutes a day allotted for Sadie's care. Michelle in purchasing is thinking about buying a cottage. 

I think that’s a reasonable metaphor for the way many large corporations and Government entities operate.  I know from my own former career only too well the habit of disparate, verticalised KPIs resulting in costs and problems being created, magnified and/or exported to other parts of the business.

I do believe there is another challenge with high performance adult nappies in a healthcare setting though: optics.

Irrespective of the numerous OH&S, comfort and cost advantages to be obtained by using well-designed, high capacity products, I reckon I know what the headline would be:  “Aged care facilities lets Grannies marinate for up to 12 hours before changing their nappies”.  THAT would be the take-away.

[oznl]

Another week slid by effortlessly in nappies: my 182nd week and things do seem to be in something of a not-uncomfortable-but-unchanging (apart from the nappies) rut.

It’s also a VERY long time for co-habitants under your roof not to notice.

Obviously my beloved knows.  My powers of camouflage are good, but no super-human.

I’ve always operated under the convenient assumption that my remaining at-home “kidult” doesn’t know.  In case the term is new to you, a “kidult” is an adult kid that has decided that life is just too good (read: “cheap”) to move out from their parent’s home and so remains there:  A something in-between kid and adult that costs a lot of money to maintain and occupies a bedroom that could be well better purposed towards brewing equipment.

But how realistic is this assumption of their ignorance?

After more than three years of permanent pants-peeing, there’s loads of evidence of it about.

Nappy paraphernalia is thinly disguised by cupboard doors in rooms that are of no concern to them.

Suspiciously large boxes arrive from time to time and are neither spoken of nor opened in public.

Dad hasn’t been spotted heading to a toilet since late 2018.

On Sundays, he does laundry: alone.

A disproportionately large rubbish bin holds an implausible pride of place in Dad’s den.

This bin has been particularly problematic in the “discretion” department recently.

Originally deployed as a staging post to cache used disposables so that I’m not forced to carry them down two flights of stairs and through the house twice per day, it stands as a shiny, metallic and out-of-proportion monument to my strange addiction.  How strange that even the iconography of this pursuit reflects “out of proportion”?

For a monument, it smells pretty bad.  I’ve been to Nelson’s Column and it smells loads better despite having been pooped on by pigeons for centuries.

Periodically, I bomb it with enzyme odour neutraliser and instead of smelling like a car load of 4-day unchanged toddlers, it smells of vanilla and deception but this cover-up never lasts.  Enzymatic cleaner is transient and expensive.  NH3 is free.

I don’t like opening that bin myself.  I can only imagine the olfactory assault that would be unleashed upon a curious kidult.  It’s fortunate for me that this particular kidult is evidently bewildered by rubbish bins and never uses them.  In her world, rubbish may be safely dropped to the floor of her room whereupon it will be silently removed by the maintenance elves who only dare enter when she isn’t there.

In additional to being frequently smelly, it’s also a noisy bin though and within 1.5 meters of her doorway (my den is an adjacent room).

Noisy?

This  nappy bin is a gleaming carapace fabricated by Chinese craftsmen, wrought from their finest “stainless steel”, the kind of stainless steel that will corrode in mild sunshine – god knows how it’s withstood condensing pee.  After purchase, it was (very briefly) a “pedal” bin, conveniently opened by depressing the small pedal at its base.  Regrettably, this mechanism was engineered such that it only survived for a short period of time after arriving home. 

I suppose I could have taken it back to the store and exchanged it for another similarly-vulnerable low quality cheap bin but tragically it smelled of pee by the time the breakage occurred and I decided to spare the shop assistants such grist for their conversational mill.

Instead, I open the bin by hand before interring my latest offering to it.  For some reason, this process is extremely noisy, operating as it does as a thin metal dish negotiating a broken lifter mechanism. 

Every time I lift or lower the lid past bent and broken metal, a deep, resonant “CLANG!” noise ensues, like a gong for a third-rate religion or, some kind of vaguely unsatisfactory bell.

Once the bin is open and I’ve recovered from the ammonia-blast, I find that the bin liner (as though recalcitrant and belligerent at its ignominious duty) has invariably succeeded in falling off the sides of the bin down to the bottom and closing itself.  It’s some kind of variant dysfunction to the way extension leads tie themselves into knots when I’m not using them.  This necessitates me to lean down and plunge my torso towards the gas chamber to retrieve and open it again.  This behaviour is rewarded with a loud crinkling plastic “rustle rustle” noise, amplified by the cheap stainless steel cylinder of ammonia gas surrounding it.

Then, my dead Barry, a curiously heavy and warm white ball, then drops into the bin landing with a deep and resonant “thud” reminiscent of a dead swan being dropped into an empty dumpster.

“CLANG, rustle, rustle, rustle thud CLANG!” goes the finale of my post-work-nappy-change opera practically outside her bedroom door.

This happens twice per day (assuming I’m not in cloth).

Since kidults don’t “do” mornings, it’s highly unlikely anything has been noticed at the breakfast changing ceremony.

It’s a different story in the evening though.

I wonder just how deeply her capacity to ignore me runs and am torn between relief and outrage.

I must accept however that it’s entirely possible (even bordering upon “likely”) that she (and by implication, her sibling too) is all-too-aware of my tragic dysfunction and have simply decided (possibly correctly) that the risk of reputational blowback exceeds the value to be obtained from weaponising this intelligence.  Or, it’s just too awkward to talk about.  And so it is simply ignored.  An embarrassing secret: like a kind of Cousin-Hugo-hidden-in-the-attic thing.

I’ve just loaded the nappy bin with today’s contribution (a “Barry” that had leaked somewhat after dealing with a payload in the region of 1.7 litres, thanks for asking) and once again, whilst the “rustle” and the “thud” were somewhat muted, the sonorous “CLANGs” were unavoidable.  The kidult skulked behind her bedroom door, her presence betrayed only by the thin band of light spraying into the gloom of an early evening hallway from the bottom of her door and the white-hot wireless access point flickering silently on a nearby ceiling.

CLANG!

Never ask for whom the bell tolls I guess.  It tolls for pee.

[oznl]

The next nappied-life challenge hoves into view: a significant family-and-friends gathering involving many guests, a multi-night stay at a venue, ceremonial duties, speeches and photographs.

Did I mention I’m supposed to be in a tuxedo and make at least one of those speeches?

I’ve actually worn a suit over my nappy before, at some forgettable-to-the-point-I’ve-forgotten-about-it corporate “gala” event in my early days of 24/7.  Back in the days when I had a career, substantial salary and a high frequent flyer status. 

I can’t remember any specific challenge with a tuxedo/tie/nappy combo but then again, with most of those gloomily-lit events, memory tends to fade after the 17th glass of house Cabernet Merlot anyway. 

Everybody ends up pissed at those events.  It’s just that one of us was pissed less metaphorically than the others.

At least my suit is black.  That always helps. I dry cleaned it this week without embarrassing incident so the last time it was used must have been leak free.

As protracted as the upcoming bun-fight is likely to be I don’t think a Rearz “Mermaid Tale” is really going to be the tool for the job.  The suit isn’t that generously sized.  I’m thinking about a Molicare Elastic (I still have an entire case of these bladder-band-aids and had been wonder what to do with them).  Although a mid-event nappy change is theoretically possible (as an “inner sanctum” participant at this event, we have a room booked at the venue), I’m not sure how logistically possible that might be.  I could anticipate precautionary bathroom usage which would almost be a shame after so long.

It’s not the logistics that’s the challenge though.  Even though it’s a rural guest house with doubtless minuscule garbage facilities and a three day trek to my car which will be parked in some adjacent paddock, I’ve solved a lot of problems with respect to integrating nappies into daily life and I’m confident of my ability to navigate these ones.

The problem is the risk of spousal blowback and my own residual guilt.

To be fair, at this stage the risk of wifely fireworks is merely theoretical.  Nothing has been said.  It’s been relatively quiet on the domestic battle-front, limited to Olympic-class ignoring of evidence, the odd sour look and her persistent use of the George Orwell edition Newspeak nappy-free-terminology dictionary.  We’ll have to see if this cease-fire holds when a mysterious black bag (containing clean nappies, plastic pants, terry-lined pants for night) is added to the already-formidable pile of stuff that must fit into my compact sedan.

And then there’s the “residual guilt” thing…  If my beloved WAS was to launch into me with a tirade about how I could dare to “contaminate” somebody else’s day with my horrendous “things”, well, there’s a small part of my brain that would be inclined to agree with her.

It’s not MY day.  I don’t care about me but I DO care about the one whose day it really is.

I HAVE to do something though.

I’ve no idea what my daytime control looks like if pushed for several hours or more.  Maybe it would work.  But what if it did NOT?  Even the Molicare bladder-band-aid might prove problematic in the face of any tactical toilet use.  At an absolute bare minimum, I think I’d need a safety-pull-up and a series of back-ups.

At night there’s no question.  I will need proper nappies.  As capricious as my bedwetting is (it’s disappeared again – I think it’s been days since I last spotted it but I can never really be 100% sure), I’m well aware that it can and will reappear without notice.  I simply cannot trust myself in bed, especially a bed that isn’t mine.

It does seem that to a certain extent, I’ve locked myself into this.  They should print warnings on the tin…

[oznl]

An unauthorised “code brown” incident occurred in the nappy department this week.  TMI warning.

Those of you have been following my sorry (soggy) tale for the last few years will be aware that I don’t habitually use my nappy for “that”.

This might be considered “wussing out” in the vernacular but for me, it’s a reasonable compromise between my deep rooted emotional need to be in nappies and maintaining social and marital respectability.  Something in my psyche permits this mitigation without undue angst.

It’s an interesting question that if I was a hermit with unlimited washing resources *would* I simply abandon ANY kind of elimination control and let my nappies manage the lot?  I’m honestly not sure what the answer is there.  I suppose it might be a more authentic experience and putting aside the experience of bystanders, I’m not completely repelled by it but it’s possible the laundry, the clean-up and the almost inevitable skin compromises would eventually get to me.

Full nappies HAVE happened on this journey, typically where the need for them occurs at the intersection between privacy, convenience and proximity to changing time.   Whilst I don’t (as far as possible) practice any kind of bladder control however, I do manage events around the corner to keep things nice.  I know I can operate in public in a wet nappy with zero detectability but I don’t think the same can be said for a dirty one.

Whilst there has been only a gentle decline in my urinary continence (apart from the bedwetting thing that I don’t actually regard as incontinence), things in the #2 department have remained fully functional.

There have however been changes though.   My usual clockwork-like #2 ritual that appeared unfailingly at morning change time has become more hit and miss of late.  Events may happen later, not at all or more than once.  It’s frequently been the case that my other end has had something to say at BOTH nappy changes of the day.

There’s also been an increase in urgency.  Events must be responded to promptly.

In any event, continence has prevailed.

The trigger for the week’s event was, I suspect, a slightly dodgy chicken schnitzel roll for lunch. 

On the face of it, the humble chicken really does seem to be on the wrong end of the pecking order.  In terms of quality-of-living, social status and life outcomes they consistently appear at bottom rung but they have been known to have the last laugh.  Many a chicken has sought and wrought vengeance against their consumer through posthumous biological warfare.  A friend of mine with many relevant letters after his name has assured me that if consumers knew the pathogens that were inside chickens they’d never dream of eating them.  I guess this is why chicken sushi isn’t a thing.

This particular chicken started to make its displeasure known to me at around 3pm, a couple of hours after it had joined me for lunch.  Fortunately, I felt fine (I have an abhorrence toward nausea) but there’d been a serious of ominous drain-like noises emanating from the area in which the chicken reposed within me and the odd (perfectly manageable) cramp.

Close to 4pm, finished for the day I walked toward my car accompanied again by some further audible chicken protests.  Another minor cramp but nothing serious.

Getting into the car and sitting down, I experienced another larger cramp and simultaneously realised that something felt vaguely wrong in the seat of my nappy.

There was stuff coming out.  It probably wasn’t cupcakes.

I tried to stop it.

It’s debatable that had I NOT been in a nappy, a fairly wet but still serviceable “Barry” (Rearz Incontrol Hybrid Elite) thank you, that I could have hauled things back into my sphere of influence and made it home but I just couldn’t seem to quite manage it.  It was like I couldn’t quite remember how to stop things after they had started down there.

As I sat there helplessly feeling the seat of my nappy literally filling up beneath me, there seemed to be very little I could do about it.  I wasn’t overwhelmed by cramping or need, I was just at this point “along for the ride” as it were on my nappy-filling journey.

Realising that by now that further battle was by now pointless, I allowed nature to take its course and hoped for the best.  Normally, being seated would have kept a metaphorical and physical lid on things, stopping them from progressing too far but it seems that the consistency of this event meant that poop could easily turn corners to explore crevasses and valleys.  Things bubbled weirdly beneath me and I felt odd poultice-like sensations appearing up my crotch and bum crack.  I feared for my car seats.

I drove home carefully.   This was NOT the time to be stopped by the police.  One or two more waves hit on the freeway but I made no effort to control them.  There seemed no point at all to that, sitting as I was in what had to by now look like Satan’s own peanut butter sandwich.

Arriving home, I waddled carefully upstairs to what would doubtless be, a fairly confronting nappy change.  Despite olfactory habituation, I was well aware that I didn’t smell great anymore.

Proceeding directly to the shower (I was home alone), I discovered that my abundantly utilised, Barry had held the line (oh hale Barry, a true member of the adult nappy royal family).  Whilst Barry was in a ghastly mess, nothing else I was wearing was.  This Barry however was no candidate for my office nappy bin.  I immediately bagged it and took it outside.  Indeed “outside” seemed barely far enough.  I briefly considered mailing it to Putin.

Of course now I was faced with changing into a BetterDry at 5pm that I expected to last until 7:30am the next morning.  I used a booster pad.  Something I don’t normally do with a BetterDry.

It was an isolated incident and it’s entirely possible that this MIGHT have happened even if I was NOT wearing a nappy which of course, would have been absolutely catastrophic. 

It remains an interesting point to ponder though.  WOULD this have happened anyway, the inevitable outcome of poultry payback or, had I NOT been in a large nappy, would I have somehow managed things better to avoid that substantial lapse in faecal continence?  I can well recall an internal talk-track near the apex of the event saying to me “well, you’re in a wet nappy anyway so do you REALLY want to fight this?” but I’m also acutely aware of the large body of anecdotal advice that insists that degrading your urinary continence will inevitably degrade continence in general.

I thank the deities that this event happily occurred at that intersection of privacy, convenience and proximity to change.  It could have been very different if I was out on the road for work.

Still, with the chicken gone and it being an alcohol night.  I mentally moved on and wondered what beer I had and what might be nice for dinner.

[BabyJilly_S]

To be honest were you not in a nappy i believe you would have been far more worried at, and taken far more notice of the ominous gurgle and cramp stage.

You got a mild case of food poisoning and that was your warning right there, after that , nappy or not, it was on its way.....

[Anton]

Oznl, I have been following your story for years and your writing never disappoints. You have a wonderful way with words and a great sense of humor. When I read "It probably wasn't cupcakes", I laughed for a good 20 seconds. Thanks for continuing to keep us in the loop! 

[BedWetMark]

18 hours ago, oznl said:

  I guess this is why chicken sushi isn’t a thing.

 

Sadly, chicken sashimi is most definitely a thing; https://www.livescience.com/60343-chicken-sashimi-salmonella-campylobacter.html

A work colleague had some in Japan and I felt like I had food poisoning just from hearing it. 

On another note to not being able to stem the flow, in my humble opinion, I've found that emergency bowel breaks are hampered by something between your legs. When I've experienced the same without wearing a nappy I've felt I've been able to clench and wait. If that makes sense!?

 

[oznl]

1 hour ago, BedWetMark said:

Sadly, chicken sashimi is most definitely a thing; https://www.livescience.com/60343-chicken-sashimi-salmonella-campylobacter.html

A work colleague had some in Japan and I felt like I had food poisoning just from hearing it. 

 

 

Reading the article, my money is on campylobacter as my experience fitted their description to a tee.  No nausea, just the abdominal dysfunction.

[oznl]

Another quiet week…  Something of a calm before the social storm of the major family “do” occurring (along with commensurate travel) this weekend but still not a week entirely without note.

I’ve written before of the curiously tidal nature of emerging nappy dependency.  Symptoms seem to ebb and flow: appearing for a while before, somewhat infuriatingly, disappearing for another while only to reappear again later after I’ve forgotten to look for them (there’s possibly a clue here).  Only over a longer time horizon can a trend line be spotted.

The most obvious and unambiguous symptom of dependency for me is my reversion to bedwetting.

This piece of “obvious and unambiguous” however recently went on holidays for nearly a fortnight.  I was beginning to think that I’d somehow retrained myself. 

Nil desperandum: tides have a habit of turning.  The last week Ive been bedwetting every night.

Wednesday night was an alcohol night.  This is a mitigation strategy for an earlier commitment to remain alcohol-free during the working week.  After a few months with my beloved and I regarding one another in sobriety, “wobbly Wednesday” appeared, celebrating the wavering in our teetotalism that happens in the middle of a working week.

In another less-than-fascinating background fact: I’ve been changing out of my work day “Barry” (Rearz Incontrol Hybrid Elite) somewhat earlier lately.  This has been because neither I nor my office chair are enjoying my wet legs.  All too commonly I experience very-minor-but-still-irritating press out leaks, usually on my right rear thigh.  It’s easier just to shower slightly earlier and bail out into a BetterDry at 5:30pm that must do duty until 6am the next day.

That’s a big ask.

It’s an ever bigger ask after you’ve got a vat of red wine on board.  Booze means bedwetting.

I’ve started adding booster pads to the BetterDry on Sundays and Wednesdays (the other “booze” nights of Friday and Saturday I’ll generally be in cloth).

This Wednesday was one of a series of particularly stressful few days as a result of one of my other expensive hobbies: a classic car.  Don’t listen to the wowsers.  Problems CAN be drowned.  Drown them I did.

After a brief pre-sleep snooze in the armchair sometime after staring in bewilderment at “Stranger Things” on Netflix, I woke up to discover that it was nearly 11pm and I was alone in the lounge.   Stranger things made no more or less sense than it had two hours ago.  Creeping into bed, still half asleep I didn’t even bother swallowing a melatonin tablet.

Accepted advice is that if you fall asleep because of alcohol, you’ll just wake up in the middle of the night and be unable to sleep further.  Not if you drink ENOUGH…  It was 5am before I woke – a full 45 minutes before the alarm was due to go off but beating the alarm is one of my body’s annoying habits. 

As I lay in the gloom coming to terms with the concept of Thursday, it occurred to me that my bum was wet.  Technically, my bum is wet EVERY morning these days but usually in a high quality disposable, it’s not so obvious having dissipated into a kind of warm humidity.  This morning it felt like my bum was resting in a heated birdbath.  A quick dab around reassured me however that it was only my bum that was wet: the bed was dry.

All too soon it was time to get up.  I was able to pee in my nappy just a little bit more as the morning’s doom-cast was being read out on the clock radio news but not much.  That’s not unusual.  Things often go to “automatic” on alcohol nights and I concluded that I’d wet in my sleep.

And how…

After my beloved had ceded the ensuite bathroom, I got up and waddled over to it.  I would describe my nappy at this stage as “pendulous”.  It swung down between my legs in an alarming fashion.

Amazingly, my terry-lined plastic pants were dry.

Removing the BetterDry revealed an impressive effort.  The padding was 100% pee-soaked and swollen.   There were ZERO dry areas inside that nappy and it had the weight and heft of a dead swan.

I HAD to measure it.  It weighed in at a startling 2354 grams. That’s close enough to 5lb 3 oz for those of you who prefer medieval measuring systems.  Given the tare weight of a BetterDry, it had dealt with a remarkable 2.1 litres of pee during the night and somehow, had NOT leaked.

I’m still slightly bewildered as to how 100% of a disposable diaper core can be wet during unconsciousness in such a fashion that all around it remains dry.  I’m used to 100% damp with cloth due to cloth’s excellent wicking but not a disposable: they habitually dam up and leak.  I would have imagined that to get 2.1 litres of pee into a BetterDry without escapes in anything resembling real world conditions would have required a combination of a NASA-standard calculated pee loading pattern with commensurate body contortions.  Go figure.

As I dropped the departed BetterDry into my clamorous nappy-bin, I felt like I should say a few words over it to mark the occasion.

Thursday was a cloth night.  I went to bed in a slightly-damp terry nappy and woke soaked.

Friday I went to bed in a dry Babykins cloth pull up.  I woke at 3am to discover that I was in the midst of a long, languid pee.   Presumably, something to do with the sensation of getting wet down there woke me.  In earlier days, I would be startled by this and have a moment of panic.  These days that’s been muted to a sense of curiosity dulled by the fact that I’m well aware that I’m suitably attired for just such an event and that there’s nothing I need to do other than to let it finish.

Saturday was a gold star effort.  I’d changed out of a soggy Mermaid just before bed (it was on me for a long-haul shift from 8am to 10pm) and into a fresh, dry Babykins cloth pull-up lined with a Babykins terry pull up under plastic pants.  I fell into bed exhausted and dry (I’d spent the day paving). 

The next thing I know is that it’s 6:30am, the cat is in the bedroom doorway yelling for breakfast and my nappy is soaking wet on me.  I woke to a feel like I was wearing a warm, wet towel, which I kind of was.  I have absolutely zero recollection of ANY pee events (even dream ones) but based on my usual cadence, I would normally have peed at least three times.  I didn’t need to go when I woke up.  I’d already been.  The whole night had been fully automatic.  It was almost disappointing.  There I’d been, tucked up under the covers and there’d clearly been a series of presumably very comfortable, relief-inducing warm pee events and I couldn’t remember ANY of them!  All I had was wet laundry.

The nights between then and now (the time of writing) have been less certain as I’ve been operating a more normal nappy change cadence which sees me a bit wet anyway by the time I get into bed but for the most part, I can’t seem to remember using my nappy during the night the next morning despite there being plenty of evidence to the contrary.

I’m not going to develop any expectations that this is a permanent change.  Doing so seems to invariably stop the show.  Irrespective of this, I’ve locked in a “nappy plan” to deal with the significant family “do” kicking off tomorrow.  Clearly this is no time to be considering nappy-free risks.

[oznl]

The friends and family “do” got “done” this week.  This involved a road trip along with three days and two nights staying at a semi-shared bed-and-breakfast/venue location in close proximity to relatives and immediate family.  The ceremonies themselves were for Saturday afternoon and evening and entailed around 100 guests along with food, drink and speeches.

I’d been wondering just how I could get this done in nappies for some time.  Obviously the travel and on-site event setup work was less of an issue but spending half a day and an entire evening in very close proximity to extended family and friends whilst wearing a form-hugging Tuxedo that didn’t really lend itself to disguising nappies was worrying me.  I’d actually considered coming OUT of nappies for the event itself, having loaded my one remaining pair of underpants into my travel bag but as events unfolded, this began to look like a bad idea so I didn’t pursue it.

I had a 3 day nappy budget.  A black backpack contained cream, spare waterproof PUL pants/black compression pants (in case of leaks) as well as a pair of terry-lined waterproofs for bed use, a sufficient blend of nappies to cover the anticipated time away with varying time-between-changes and a small spare nappy allowance for contingencies.  My beloved graciously chose not to “see” this bag and spoke not of it.

Just the road trip was a poignant reminder to me that things are not what they used to be in the downstairs department.  It was only a 2 hour drive but I was wet within 30 minutes of departure despite only just having changed.  A tactically-sound-but-bulky “Mermaid Tale” would get me through the journey, the setup work and most likely, the pre-event dinner at the local village pub (a highly bucolic, hose-friendly tiled establishment featuring both country AND western music, unintentionally but realistically themed in 1976).  I do NOT recommend their “Fisherman’s Basket” ever to anyone.

After an unremarkable night, I lingered in my night nappy until late morning, proceeding directly to a change and my suit.  For my penguin-like regalia, I’d decided to use one of my Molicare “elastic” garments.  There are the thinnest, reasonably-absorbent nappies I have in my arsenal.  The Molicare Elastic is so much a nappy as a kind of “pee bandaid” but at least it fitted relatively unobtrusively under my tightish Tuxedo.  I knew it was there but it was unlikely others would.  A Mermaid Tale would have been a really bad idea.

I’d also decided that this would merely be a “safety nappy” and that I would use a toilet like a grown up.

That didn’t happen really.

Pulling the front of the Molicare down shortly after donning it for dressing, I stood at the toilet for what seemed like 3 days before pulling on the dress pants and leaving the room make sure I was completely empty before “suiting up”.  Voiding into a toilet proved to be a fairly unsatisfying experience.  Despite my best efforts to force things, pee just dripped anaemically from me like a rusty tap – apparently endlessly.  After a minute or two I gave up.  Time was precious. I just stuffed myself back into my nappy, still dripping and finished dressing. 

10 minutes later, my bladder got the memo and I experienced a pee urge!  Now I had to lower my black dress pants, a black compression pant AND a pair of dark blue PUL waterproofs just to access the equipment.  It turned out to be my bladder’s idea of a practical joke.  Again, it dripped slowly.  Again, after a minute or two of time-wasting, I stuffed myself back into my nappy gear still dripping and left my room  (presumably still dripping) so that I could get where I needed to be on time.  So much for remaining dry.

Guests arrived, the formalities commenced.

Unseasonal rain had forced us to move the ceremony from a lake-side garden to indoors: a small area adjacent to our accommodation bedroom.  100 people were forced to use our toilet over the course of two hours or so.  Great!  Even greater, it occurred to me that my nappy backpack, whilst not on display, would be seen along with its partially disgorged contents by anybody who may have had cause to open the vanity cupboard below the sink.  Pee urges appeared every time I saw the long queue of people waiting to use the solitary facility available at our backup ceremony location.  I just gave in to them and let my nappy take care of it.  Fortunately, a degree of prior dehydration ensured that quantities of pee were miniscule. 

The whole high-frequency-urgency thing did seem to be largely psychological.  I never had anything like a full bladder.

Eventually, we all relocated to a pavilion for a formal dinner.

Having failed in my objective to deliver a speech in a dry nappy, I pursued my backup objective to deliver my speech sober.  Again, this privation of fluids stood me in good stead.

Relieved of further ceremonial obligations, I decided to drink a vat of rather decent Shiraz over the course of the evening.  My suit was black, the lights were dim but to be fair, the Molicare took it all in its stride anyway.  I’d long since abandoned any effort at bladder control and I was again using my nappy semi-automatically.  The relative dehydration of the day seemed to be working in my favour and the gallon of Shiraz had yet to complete the journey from gut to bladder.

Late in the evening, I staggered up the steep hill that separated my room for the celebration pavilion with yet another flower-vase-sized glass of Shiraz in my hand, my beloved beside me.

All of the Shiraz had caught up with me by now.  The hill had gotten 25% steeper and the path somehow confusing.  My feet felt like I’d borrowed them from a friend.  Upon entering our room, I found it to be spinning a little.  I quaffed my remaining Shiraz whilst my beloved quickly brushed her teeth and changed for bed.

I needed to change for bed too – badly…

Memories were a bit fragmented by now.  Hopefully I remembered to brush my teeth.   I’ve forgotten that bit.  For some reason I was completely unable to find my pyjama pants (it transpires that they were “hidden” in the middle of the bathroom floor).  Thusly I staggered into the bedroom clad only in a muppet-themed t-shirt and voluminously puffy terry-lined plastic pants over a nappy.  A pained expression from my beloved (presumably at my undress) penetrated the fog of alcohol I was lost in but by now, it was VERY important for me to be laying down, preferably in bed but the floor would do if necessary.

Then it was 6am and upon waking, yet again, my bum felt like it was resting in a tepid birdbath.

Holy #$%!!!  Just how much action could one Molicare Elastic handle?  It’d put it on 15 hours ago!  I’d be super-lucky if it was just my terry waterproofs that were soaked. 

Frantically I felt around my bum and relief flooded through me as I realised that the doubtlessly-expensive venue bed was dry beneath me.

Putting a hand inside my terry lined waterproofs I was surprised (and further relieved) to find the terry lining dry too.  I hadn’t even leaked within my safety gear.

Then I realised that the swollen and warm nappy I could feel was a plastic backed one – NOT a Molicare elastic.

It seems that I HAD changed my nappy before staggering into bed but my memory of doing this had been obliterated by booze.

It was a very good thing that I DID change before bed.  This meant that I’d gone to bed dry but I’d woken to find myself very, very wet.  There’d been no pee dreams, just pee.  It seems that my bedwetting is now robust enough to occur even in a bed that isn’t my own:  something to think about for future planning.

Removing my wet and remarkably-crookedly-applied BetterDry, I changed into a “Mermaid Tale”:  the guests had gone and the day would be long with tear-down and pack-up duties undertaken largely at distance from others.

At least I didn’t have to drive home a plastic bag of wet nappies.  The bed-and-breakfast room bathroom had a trash receptacle the size of a tea-cup but, being a rural venue built for events, a very large rubbish skip (dumpster) had been prominently placed in an adjacent paddock (with some degradation of the otherwise pristinely pastoral scene) for event rubbish disposal.  The odds of anybody forensically opening and inspecting the MANY black rubbish bags we’d filled it with was impossibly remote and with only a few core family members dispersed over the venue’s acres on varying clean-up tasks, dumping one more bag was no problem at all.

All in all, the event was an enormous success, I avoided embarrassing myself (and I've seen myself in the photos - you really can't tell) and I learned that hotel beds are no barrier to my bedwetting given sufficient alcohol.

[Puppyz]

Nice Blues Brothers ref

[oznl]

1 hour ago, Puppyz said:

Nice Blues Brothers ref

It really WAS that kind of establishment ?  Things get weird down the Warrego.

[Little Sherri]

Just got caught up on the last couple of weeks of your posts. Hilarious and thought-provoking as usual. 

I'm going to say more about this over on my "channel", but I think it's time that I admit to myself that I'm a bedwetter. I'm mildly fascinated by my experience in watching your experience and thinking, well, that's not what I'm experiencing... and then I experience it. 

[oznl]

7 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Just got caught up on the last couple of weeks of your posts. Hilarious and thought-provoking as usual. 

I'm going to say more about this over on my "channel", but I think it's time that I admit to myself that I'm a bedwetter. I'm mildly fascinated by my experience in watching your experience and thinking, well, that's not what I'm experiencing... and then I experience it. 

I just read that.  It might be time to change the "Diapers" status on your DD profile from "Adult Kid" to "Bedwetter"?  It seems like you're there.

[Little Sherri]

On 8/19/2022 at 8:18 PM, oznl said:

It might be time to change the "Diapers" status on your DD profile from "Adult Kid" to "Bedwetter"?  It seems like you're there.

Done!

[oznl]

This week I thought I’d give myself a decent dose of nappy rash.  It’s been a while since I’ve done that.

I’m not sure if it’s down to the fact that long term nappy usage has given me a kind of rhino-hide in the relevant areas, or that I rinse assiduously at nearly ever change, or that I use a sparing amount of sudo-cream at nearly every change, or that I’m only rarely in a nappy that is any more than just wet but I don’t see diaper rashes very often.  This surprised me (pleasantly) when I started out with permanent nappy use, especially since my practice of practicing non-bladder-control means that I’m wet (to some extent or another) probably 23 out of 24 hours every day and “air out” time isn’t a thing.  I was expecting wrash wrestling to be one of the less attractive elements of the lifestyle.

I’m blaming this week’s rash on protracted cloth use.

The previous week was a 100% disposable one: dealing with travel, the big family event and associated interstate visitors staying at my house, laundering and drying a conga-line of large, wet cloth nappies was not a pragmatic option.  Having booked the following week as vacation (a kind of recovery week), I decided that I’d restore karmic balance by living in cloth nappies for 100% of that week.  If @Stroller can do it, so can I (this is a theory, not a marketing claim).

A lot of my cloth nappies are “old-school” pinned affairs that can be pretty bulky.  That’s fine in a bed, it’s less fine in a shopping mall.  Consequentially, I was rotating through quite a few of my “B list” products:  DPF Velcro diapers, pre-fold diapers and the like.  The absorbency on some of these products is far from stellar and that, in combination off not having to be at work meant that I was running a “three nappy per day” diet instead off the usual two.  In addition to my usual “day” nappy, I’d change into an “evening” nappy with a late-afternoon shower before changing again into a “night” nappy as I was going to bed.

As an aside, a week of going to bed in dry nappies let me take a quick pulse check on bedwetting frequency.  It’s easy to spot when you fall asleep dry.  You just grab a quick feel when you wake (for me there’s usually a wake-up at around 2am) and there’s your answer.  For 4 of the 7 nights I found myself already wet at the 2am check.  For one of those nights, I think it was the peeing that woke me as I realised I was most way through a rather warm, comfortable wetting incident as I awoke.  For the other 2 mornings, I woke dry but peed before falling back asleep.  It’s possible that I peed more during the night asleep but I don’t count those events.

Anyway, the triple-nappy-day DOES mean that there’s no skin clean up when I change into my night nappy.  The night shift change is strictly about peeling off the wet one to dump into the laundry tub before pulling on a dry one (reusing my plastic pants).  I doubt my beloved would look kindly upon complex 11pm ablutions.

Another exacerbating factor was that there’d been more “code brown” incidents:  one was another episode of the wrong kind of incontinence caused by a vengeful snack (more on this emerging trend later) and necessitated an immediate and out-of-band nappy change.  The others had been follow on incidents that I couldn’t be bothered managing as I was alone and close to a change time anyway (so sheer laziness).  In any case, I’d not been dirty for any great length of time, perhaps an hour at most.

I’m also aware that there are no PH balancing additives, aloe-vera extracts or ammonia-cancelling compounds in cloth nappies.  Their principle ingredients are cotton and ageing pee which isn’t something you’ll find in a skin care manual.  In addition to economy, I realise the strong  green credentials of cloth but putting the solar-powered planet saving unicorn thing to one side, sitting in plastic-sealed towelling soaked with yesterday’s used herbal tea sounds like a rash recipe to me.

Friday night was the clincher.  I’d changed OUT of a wet cloth Rearz that I’d been in for about 5 hours during the evening shift and pulled on heavier night shift gear: a Babykins terry layered beneath a Babykins pull on cloth all wrapped up in encased plastic pants.  I think I remember a minor twinge of “scratchiness” down there but thought nothing of it.  Suitably re-attired, I fell asleep dry to wake briefly at 3am to find myself deliciously warm and wet already (what a bizarrely comforting thing nappy-clad sleep-wetting is).   I can recall that the wet area of my nappy felt slightly itchy but not enough to keep me awake.   I woke again at 7am to find myself radically wetter and in that curious incontinence zone that sometimes I drift into sometimes now: laying in bed periodically dripping and dribbling with no discernible intent or effort.

My nappy still felt pretty good but there were localised “sunburn” notes now but again, not that serious. 

The clue that all was not well appeared in the shower.

I have a hand shower which is useful (especially when bowel continence has taken a holiday) and at my morning wash (not my main shower of the day), it’s really just a bit of a squirt of warm-to-hot water at the relevant areas.

Pointing the shower jet to the danger-zone I think I’d yelped even before the blast of agony had been processed by my brain.  How did it come to be that my shower was dispensing battery acid instead of soothing H20?   At least that’s what it felt like. The warm water blast hitting my nether regions produced a white hot arrow of pain that had me gasp and reflexively pull the shower away.  Cautiously trying again, as soon as the water jet hit my scrotal zone, nerves shrieked again in a fiery maelstrom of agony.

I completed the shower very, very carefully and cautiously dabbing at the offending area with a towel, inspected the terrain.

The front of my scrotal area appeared swollen, rough and glowed a dull, cherry red – the kind of colour you get when you heat iron to 800C or so, which is a bit like how it felt.  It looked angry, an angry alien.  It looked like it wanted to shout at me.

Well helloooo nappy rash!

Little wonder babies scream about this!

I deployed sudocream to the relevant area like I’d deploy peanut butter to a sandwich before (very carefully) changing into a PH-balanced and skin-friendly Abena L4.  Cloth would have to wait a bit.

I tried a cloth again Saturday night but even the towelling rubbing against me was a source of discomfort.

It was perhaps the subconscious fear of nocturnal agony that saw me NOT wet the bed that night for the first time in days.  I had to pee “manually” at around 3am which to be honest, didn’t hurt.

Next wash was painful but I imagined that my swollen red melons of testicles were a little more subdued.

Within a couple of days, things were back under control despite never having lapsed in the wearing of wet nappies.  I’d simply switched to skin-friendly medical disposables and upped the nappy rash cream dosage.  Dry out time appeared to be unnecessary.

I’m not sure if I’m 100% out of the woods though.  Things are still a bit, well, red down there and this evening’s shower-before-change MAY have been a bit, tingly…  We’ll see if THIS week’s cloth cycle can do a lazarus number on these micro-demons hell-bent on nomming (and in no pleasant way) on my dangly bits…

[Stroller]

2 hours ago, oznl said:

Anyway, the triple-nappy-day DOES mean that there’s no skin clean up when I change into my night nappy. 

Hi oznl.  Keep on trying!  I always wipe myself down between changes though - just a wet flannel.  If I'm at home the flannel lives over the side of the bath.  Elsewhere I carry a damp flannel in a waterproof bag.  I assume it helps, but I've no proof.

I don't get nappy rash often - maybe 2 or 3 time a year, and then nothing serious.  I use Sudocrem if it's very mild, and Canesten cream as well if I think it may get serious.  It's always cleared up quickly.  I'm extra careful if there's athlete's foot around, in case we're talking about the same fungal infection - left hand for my toes, right hand for my crotch.  Again I've no proof it is the same thing, but the conditions athlete's foot likes are remarkably similar to a damp scrotum imho.

[oznl]

Well it’s Saturday morning and whilst I think I have my nappy rash cornered, it’s not dead yet…

I went back into cloth on Thursday night (as is my usual cycle).   I was wet when I went to bed on Thursday but things seemed ok.

Friday was ok as well, spent in one of my cloth Rearz Omutsu diapers: the penguin one before donning an evening shift cloth diaper at around 5:30pm since all the penguins were soggy.

Friday night I changed before bed as the “DPF cloth diaper with extra padding” dating from somewhere in the 1980s I’d put on was giving me all the warning signs that attempting to sleep in it would result in catastrophic leakage.  It’s a deceptive nappy: apparently fluffy and thick, it doesn’t so much absorb pee as save it up in order to give it all back to you as a surprise later.  I’ve been caught a number of times when pulling down my plastic pants for a change to discover that those plastic pants are full of pee and that the DPF diaper is draining freely into them.

My preferred night gear for a 10:30pm change remains a Babykins pull-on terry worn beneath a Babykins pull on cotton nappy with encased plastic pants.  Comfortable, cloth, non-sagging and I could pee in it whilst swinging from the ceiling fan without it leaking should I so desire.

For some reason, I was acutely aware of “rough” terry towelling against my bits as I pulled it up though.

At 2am I woke to discover that I was now wet downstairs (there’s been quite a run of this lately but I don’t want to make any big calls in case I provoke the gods of dry beds).

I was also itchy downstairs…  That’s not good.

I managed to fall back asleep anyway.

Things were still a little, well, red in the morning but not close to their previous extent.  I’ve changed into a skin-loving Abena L4 today and a dinner party tonight means that cloth is off the menu.  I’ll probably deploy a long-range super-nappy (“Mermaid Tale” or if I'm daring, a Tykable Cammies) that could withstand a 4pm-until-8am-the-next-morning shift and keep slathering on the sudocrem.

[Little Sherri]

I'm wondering if I'm doing the right thing, in terms of nappy rash management. @Stroller's reference to using Canesten was interesting. First of all, I think that you are correct, @Stroller, about the possibility for cross-contamination between Athletes' Foot and Jock Itch. They're both in the fungi family and they both like humidity, darkness and confinement. 

I used to have a prescription cream from my pre-nappy days that I got for a raging bout of Jock Itch, which I was vexing because, at the time, I was going to the gym four days a week, running miles while there, and had given myself essentially undiapered diaper rash. THAT stuff was like a nuclear strike - it vanished, and it didn't come back for a couple of years.

However, wearing diapers that I don't wish to discuss with my physician, coupled with Covid strains on the healthcare system and lockdowns, etc, caused me to resort to using off-the-shelf Athlete's Foot/Jock Itch/Ringworm antifungal spray that says you are supposed to use it for a LONG time after symptoms abate. I'm wondering if this stuff just doesn't have the firepower of the prescription medication, and if in fact I'm making my situation worse, because, like inconsistent use of antibiotics begets antibiotic resistant infections, I might be encouraging fungal Darwinism down below. It seems like I stop using this stuff after three weeks or so of being religious about it, and then I get about a month off, and then something happens - a long day in a wet diaper, hiking, a bad decision while drunk to just go to bed in something I've had on for several hours... and boom, three more weeks of aerosol assault down below are called for. 

I haven't tried Canesten cream, but perhaps it's made of sterner stuff than the sprayed powder concoction I'm using currently?

[Stroller]

2 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I haven't tried Canesten cream, but perhaps it's made of sterner stuff than the sprayed powder concoction I'm using currently?

It's active ingredient is 1% Clotrimazole, and it's a standard and effective off-prescription treatment for thrush over here.  That means it's a fungicide that's safe on your nether regions & you can get it at any chemist/pharmacy.