www.incontinentsupport.org

Where many of my military friends have been injured in combat, roadside bombs and so on I took my injury and received my incontinence from two sources. In early 2010 I was sitting in my office as the lead of my shop. I had already sent many of my Airman home early for the holiday weekend. I got a call from the Military personal flight about a beeping noise coming from the 3rd floor where the finance team was working on closing out some deals that weekend and the noise was bothering their leadership. I knew this was from a UPS that was about to die so I grabbed a few cases of batteries. Large, heavy batteries that run heavy equipment for a few hours in the event of a power failure. I didn't want to climb the stairs multiple times so I grabbed all three boxes, a bit over 100lbs i'm sure and started up the stairs. I remember being about two or three steps from the 3rd floor when the door swung open and some female captain came running out. She pushed right into me as she went down the stairs. I was thrown off balance and went flying backwards down the stairs. I remember boxes crashing down on me. My wedding ring went from round to egg shaped or something that cut into my finger deeply. I went down a few flights of stairs stopping somewhere around the 1st / 2nd floor.

She didn't stick around. Before i passed out, I remember her stopping, turning white and fleeing. I got taken to the base hospital by someone who heard the fall and came to check on me. Over the next 6 months or so, I fought with them to figure out what the problem was. I told them early on I felt like I had a 2-3 inch wide hot knife shoved in my lower back just an inch to the right of my spine. I explained that all the muscles in the right side of my body were always super tight and how badly my back hurt. They just kept saying I pulled a muscle. I started off on Alleve before being put on Percocet, Darvocet, Fiorcet, and finally a combination of Valium and Vicoden. I finally bitched enough they sent me to physical therapy who worked with me but it only got worse. During this time, I was noticing I was having issues going pee.

I'd go up to the urinal and go pee and feel like I was done. As soon as I relaxed to pack everything up, i'd start to squirt more into my boxers and uniform. ABU's apparently as horrible as they are, can still camouflage urine at least. I started by using men's pads but those quickly weren't enough as I found myself squirting often. I soon realized that if I tried to lift something heavy or twisted my back to the side I would empty my bladder without control. I spoke to my therapist about this and we brought my doctor over. "I wouldn't worry about it, your muscles are just pulled so tight it's probably pulling on your bladder. If you lost control of your bowels or you can't hold your bladder anymore at all, then come back and see me".

I continued to fight and finally got an Xray. That xray was enough to send me down to the Alaska spine Institute. They ordered a CT scan and a MRI. Sure enough, my spine was crushing my disk which was pushing out against my nerves. I went back to the PT people and they realized they had only made it worse. Instead of extending my spine, they were working to compress it. I stopped seeing them and started with off base support. A little over a year after the injury I was out of the service and here I am today.

I have to thank my wife for all her support. Had it not been for her, I don't know where I would be. Moving from an active young male to suddenly needing to wear diapers like my 2 year old son was humiliating and I didn't know how to deal with it. It was one thing to be in the privacy of my own home, but after we moved here to Colorado and I started to see specialist to look into my back more and my incontinence I had to get used to being in just a tshirt and diaper, or gown and diaper around people. I had to get used to therapist lifting my diaper up to slide electro pads on my lower back to connect to a TINS unit. I had to get used to my doctors checking my diaper and my manhood. I became so depressed during this time and didn't know how to deal with it all. My wife was there to support me and talk sense into me. She reminded me that my diaper was just a different type of underwear, that I was still the same loving husband and father I had always been.

Welcome aboard troyfrezze, sounds like a painful ordeal to have happen... did the woman ever come forward as to being the person involved? To run off like that seeing someone injured is a tad criminal if you ask me, she really should have tried to help or get someone else to assist her. Anyhow, it is a challenge to deal with, and more then humiliating to have to resort to a diaper, but all in all, it could be worse... sounds like a super woman you have beside you in life... worth hanging on to that one! Support is a big help with all this. Continue healing, and stay in touch with what happens, Puffy

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Puffy
BC, Canada
Fighting the "Bladder Battle" since 1995

Our mysterious woman never came forward. All I could describe was a blond woman in uniform that appeared to be about mid-30's. Sadly that's like 90% of the Air Force I swear. Her image is forever engrained in my head. I barely saw her coming out the door before she hit me. I just remember feeling my balance give way and I tried to throw my body weight forward in hopes the weight of the batteries would keep me up. Once I started falling, everything went fast. I remember my arm slamming into the railing, my back hitting the concrete steps, my head bouncing and the boxing bouncing on to me as me and the three boxes went down the stairs. I'm happy to be alive at least, it clearly could have been paralysis or death in my future. In the end, I just got a messed up back.

To this day, I don't know what upset's me more, knowing she fled the area instead of checking on me, or knowing that for over half a year I fought with the base hospital which was deemed "the best hospital in the Air Force" for them to tell me I was ok, just had some really tight muscles. It makes me wonder what would have happened if I hadn't been so stubborn for them to send me off base to the Spine clinic.

As for the humiliation. It was a big deal. It stopped going to the gym because I didn't want people to see me and I stopped going out as much. For a while I just stayed home in a funk. I think the image of being in the military and not letting my people know there boss was in diapers was a huge deal. Once I got out, a lot of that weight went away. Still though, I was ashamed of who I was and didn't want people to see me. I would go out and constantly be pulling down on my shirt or afraid I was going to leak and be humiliated in public. These days I have better diapers and as stated prior, my wife went out of her way to drill it in my brain that I was still the same person, just wore different underwear. Now, I don't really care as much. I still go to work now as a military contractor in my slacks and a button up shirt with my diaper underneath and I keep it private, but I don't feel like its the end of the world for me anymore. If i'm out shopping and I get the "hey mister! Can you reach that on the top shelf for me, the one way in the back!" I don't worry if my shirt rides up and someone sees my diaper. In two years, I haven't had one person make fun of me yet that i'm aware of. The worst I have got was from a civilian doctor that I saw for a bit when we first moved here that kept telling me "Baby, your just to young for diapers". She was a very sweet lady, but it slightly annoyed me that she kept telling me I was too young for them. Like I had a choice or something. That...and the youngest of us are the ones in diapers to begin with.