20100414 (J)
Journal: April 14, 2010
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Acceptance                         Senses

Shitting my Pants: I think I can count the times I shit my pants. After several close call on my way to work in Las Vegas. Often after I entered the elevator in the Bank Building but before I could get to the bathroom, intense sphincter pain would nearly overwhelm me. Close, but no “accidents” (my mother must have called it that when I lost control of my bowels).

So the first, discounting childhood (of which one in particular I remember in about first or second grade, before the new school was built, waiting in the old schools bush covered window well) is probably in Atlanta, visiting my brother, losing it at the front door after driving with “pain” for 20 minutes, just seconds short of “relief”.

The second may be driving home to Cary from seeing Heather in Schaumburg, losing it while driving on US 14 between Barrington and Fox River Grove. Then there was the time at MCC, standing in the toilet stall, unable to last the second it took to lower my pants and sit down; once on the last step up to my Woodstock apartment; another in Jewel’s bathroom, held until bending to partly sit, then losing it explosively spraying the wall a foot or more away. Doing the same several times loosing it while “sitting”, spraying my toilet and bathroom wall.

Most recently last Sunday night returning from eating with Heather outside a Culvers south of Huntley where I had pulled in to use the bathroom, just as I stepped out of the car, I let loose with both urine (the reason I had stopped) and a little shit. The urine spread the little shit there was all over my underwear, soaking thoroughly my pants. Again, coming up just a little short on control of the sphincter.

“Close calls” are too numerous to count. It seems acceptable relief, i.e. using a toilet properly, does not occupy much memory space, perhaps because it is so common and habitual. But “accidents” do. I have learned the locations of many public toilets and scan for others when I don’t know of one, to I can quickly reach one if I feel a possible loss of control coming on. Sometimes I have only minutes, other times up to 10 minutes or more.

Last Sunday was the first loss of control since my diarrhea mostly went away about a year ago. But Sunday was also anomalous because it was bladder driven rather than bowel-driven as all the others. Sunday though was my first loss of bladder control since early childhood.

Ah, the joys of aging never end. A white butterfly fluttered by today.