Medical Conditions ExplainedMedical Conditions Explained, Reviewed, and Debated

She tilted forward to the point where she was practically against my ear and hoarsely whispered, “For years I thought I was the only one with this problem! Now I hear about it everywhere.” This rangy woman with springy red hair was, to my surprise, suddenly the most animated I’d seen her all afternoon. I had just mentioned that I was doing some contract work for an adult diaper vendor and she immediately ran with the subject. She had a strange mixture of relief and reluctance written on her face.

We were two women sitting in the worn but freshly scrubbed chairs of our old high school’s cafeteria, meeting each other at a reunion after a lapse of silent decades. Why the two of us had fallen out of touch was nothing more than the usual tale of life’s directions and demands overtaking youth. But present still was the rare, undeniable easy exchange that had always passed between the two of us, the chemistry that had made our teen friendship so stellar. A pang of remorse shot through me when I wondered why I hadn’t at least tried to find Sherry B. on FaceBook before this encounter. She was the same beautiful, feisty girl as ever, managing to laugh when others hesitated. Shamefully, I think my neglect had something to do with denial of her Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis that my mother told me had told me about just as I was graduating from college.

It was hard to believe that she could treat me with the same comfort and ease as she had when we were each other’s high school confidantes. But there she was, poring with unfeigned interest over the little family photo album I had brought, that mandatory accessory at these functions. And I found hers equally interesting, a photo essay of three small strawberry blonde boys playing in a backyard splash pool to three strikingly handsome young men showing off their Jeeps and girlfriends. “You would think by now I would be done with the diaper scene,” Sherry gave a little snort. “But now I am caught up in the world of adult diapers.”

“What goes around, comes around, I guess,” she continued. “It was terrifying at first to realize that incontinence was something I was going to have to accommodate. I mean, who wants to be signing the UPS delivery slip for adult diapers when you’ve got a teenager looking over your shoulder? But over time I realized these kids only needed me to shrug my shoulders about it so they could move on, too.”

“After all the pain and agony I went through at first, thinking I was the only one with this problem, now it seems everywhere in magazines and on television there are ads for incontinence products. And even you being the business. What gives with that?” she asked.

I wish Sherry could understand how much respect I had for her, after looking at those pictures. I wondered how she managed to deal with raising those three little boys to where they are now, while coping with whatever wrench her MS unpredictably threw into the works. She had managed to steer clear of self-absorption; her children, her travelling here today, her interest in my family, all testified to this strength. How dull I was in comparison. And as dullards will do, I launched into systematically answering her question about America’s growing incontinence concerns. I thought she needed to know why she didn’t have an exclusive corner on adult diapers market.

In fact, the first half of this century will see a 147% rise in the number of citizens who are 65 and older. Combine that with an increasing life expectancy and the aging complication of incontinence and it is not hard to understand why there is growing publicity of incontinence care products. People from all stations in life can experience incontinence and will have to deal with the prejudices that ensue. I told Sherry she could consider herself avant-garde with her frankness and uplifting attitude. There was a public out there hungry to hear her overcoming voice and she needed to start blogging and podcasting it. I was in my PR mode without a thought to Sherry’s receptiveness.

Thank goodness I stopped to take a breath. It was then that I noticed that my friend was fading in her chair. She had not flown hundreds of miles, enduring airports and airplanes with her two canes and a wheelchair to have someone tell her how she needed to champion a cause. She was here to gain strength from some familiar old faces she recognized from a time when she had known fewer cares. And what she was wanting right this moment was a guiding hand on her wheel chair on the way to the ladies’ room. “Just wheel it to the door and dump the cripple in,” she instructed. I stopped in my tracks, stunned at her words, until I caught a glimpse of her teasing smirk. Attitude is everything and Sherry, baby, you’ve got the right stuff.