The world of urinary urge incontinence spun into my world following a stroke when I was 48 years old. With the incontinence came feelings of shame, embarrassment and frustration, and it took me a while to learn to manage those feelings. In the past seven years, I found that facing urge incontinence in myself is quite different than dealing with the incontinence of students in a special education classroom. I found that I have the strength to tackle it head on.

Living in an area of Tennessee where people expect a woman to be prim and proper made dealing with incontinence quite difficult. My aristocratic name of Patricia fit into the mold for a proper Tennessee woman. However, the problem of incontinence placed me in a position where I learned to see life from a totally different perspective.

I felt the shame of suddenly being wet in a public place. Embarrassment from that experience kept me housebound for quite a while, but I grew to realize that life does not stop because of wetness.

The courage to reenter daily life was found when I remembered the students with whom I had worked. They faced the world every day wearing absorbent products. I had encouraged them to keep going and not let incontinence rule their life. The encouraging words came back to haunt me, and I responded in the same manner in which my students had responded. I marched back into the world to enjoy life.

Of course, there have been a few challenges along the way. The first one was determining which product to use. Remembering what I had gleaned in the classroom, I set about trying various products and discovered that the button-style undergarment worked best for me.

Toting extra undergarments and straps for changing purposes also posed a challenge. I learned to carry a larger bag/purse to hold my needed supplies. Baby wipes were packed for clean-up purposes. To accommodate space restrictions in my purse, I put a few baby wipes into a small plastic bag. I learned that some plastic sandwich bags are definitely more leak-proof than others.

As time marched on, I found out about adult wipes that are larger and stronger than the baby wipes. Because adult wipes were created for incontinent purposes, they also contained ingredients to make cleansing and odor elimination easier.

I learned to carry plastic bags from the grocery store in order to dispose of used products while on the go. Those bags fold to a tiny size and stash in a corner of the purse. When needed I easily placed the used product inside the bag, wrapped the top ends around the enclosed product and tied the ends together into a knot. It created a discreet small package, which I then dropped into the trash before washing my hands.

Life with incontinence is always changing. Incontinence can have various levels and can require different means to meet those levels – and that is another chapter in the story of living with incontinence.