I was born in the mid 50’s and I was plagued with primary nocturnal enuresis : nightly till I was 12.5 , and occasionally till 15. I have one younger brother and one younger sister none of them got that problem. At that time my bedwetting was a family secret kept as well as possible….
I had to endure one of the 2 bad or worth choices until I achieved dryness :
- Option 1 :the noisy rubber mattress cover plus a large used bath towel to cover it ( instead of a regular bottom sheet) and waking up wet and stinky. Even-though both the window and the bed remained open at day time and the wet towel was removed for washing every morning a ) there was a permanent pee smell in my bedroom… b) I had also to wear long tee-shirts to bed instead of regular PJ’s . Then unnecessary to tell that I could never allow any buddy to come in my room….
- Option 2 :bed equipped with a mattress cover much less noticeable plus regular sheets and wearing regular PJ’s, but I had to wear vinyl pants and diapers. Another way to feel really weird!, a) At age 8 my mother still diappered me after supper, b) Impossible for relatives not to notice the noise and the bulk under my PJ’s when kissing goodnight c) once a weak large snap-side plastic pants and cloth diapers were displayed to the neighborhood on our clothe-line.
- I was a 3rd grader when I told mum that I could not wear any longer plastic pants and diapers because of being too babyish, I also started to remove them once in bed. Kids in the vicinity started to be suspicious (my brother & sister were already 6 & 3) it was more difficult to make them believe that this was for toddlers. The family doctor recommended to cure me with an enuresis-alarm ( bed-pad type), but at that age it did not work good enough: after 2 months my parents were fed up by having to get up to lift me every night, thus I was back to 100% wet nights. However my mum agreed that I was too old to be diapered, so I switched to option 1. During the next 6-7 years I swapped from option1 to option 2 and back several times but then I started to diaper myself with the first disposable diapers “band type: 2 at front 1 at back” inside waterproof pull on panties. I had a full cabinet only for regular and waterproof sheets, pajamas, plastic pants and packs of diapers. I always wondered why people talk about diaper rash, in my case, despite spreading talc, I got burned some few times at thighs because of elastic marks.
Sleep-wetting is not only bedwetting : family visit trips meant 24 hours by car (from TX to GA), I needed to wear the wetter’s set. Once (I was 12) leaking occurred when returning from a Christmas visit. I had to go to a truck-stop restrooms. Mum gave me a dry PJ’s pair of trousers + clean plastic pants and diapers, after cleaning myself, as I stepped out from men’s room, giving her back the wet pajamas and open snap-side pants, another family arrived glaring at my crinkling and bulky butts…(I wished I could be able to disappear in a mouse-hole!). My father got mad about the smell in the car during the few next weeks, since I had to wait for a weather compatible with drying, before being able to shower the car backseat…
When I spent 10 days or so at my grand parent’s the bed-wetter panties & diapers were also mandatory. At age 15 when I was in the good way to outgrow my enuresis (wetting only like 2 or 3 times a week) My granny still checked every evening that I was equipped for the nite (one small clap on my butt…) and asked every morning about the wet or dry status . When I refused to answer (from age 13) she started to search for dirty diapers or drying plastic pants . She also openly talked about my progress or relapses to my aunts, even though my mother & I begged her not put that on the public place in order “to help preserving my self-esteem”…..Of course in these conditions all my cousins knew about my night-wetting ( I was the oldest among 5 boys & 7 girls, the youngest being 8 years younger than me , one girl wetted till she was 6 and two boy till they were 5) I remember a little Kristin (5 when I was 13) asking “Jerry is that true that a big boy like you has to wear baby diapers to bed? I don’t need them since a long time” or my cousin Josh (almost my age usually very friendly) absolutely refusing to share a bed with me one year after It was over: ”not to be stinky the next morning!”
Between ages 11 & 15, this was really my huge suffering and sorrow, seeing many doctors starting a lot of different cures, always fearing that my bedwetting would be disclosed to others than family members (like school nurse or teachers), or that classmates would learn. At the time I frequently tried not to fall asleep in order to go to bathroom in the middle of the night, I also dreamed that I was going to the bathroom to pee, but most of time I woke up wet, once more! I never accepted sleepovers or going to summer camps, making it difficult to have close friends…
I hoped so much to become dry that finally, a third attempt with the enuresis alarm helped me to be cured : just opposite to common sense a nurse gave me the solution “ drink 2 glasses just before sleeping instead of peeing just before sleeping“: - instead of bedwetting once in 2 or 3 nites from a far to being full bladder, urination from a full bladder is almost sure. As a result , instead of allowing your bladder to govern you whenever it decides to, your brain will react to sensing your bladder full. That time my parents did not lift me up asleep from bed (like they used to when I was a 3rd then a 6th grader). It was my full responsibility and I reported weekly to that nurse. At beginning, I woke up after peeing, then it was during it but too hard to stop peeing, so it still resulted in complete voiding in the bed, then I could stop the flow and finish in the night pot, Progress went on so that I woke up from the few first drops,( the wet spot being only 2 inches), then the real successes came: waking up by feeling my bladder (which never happened before : previously dry nights were more the result of no drinks after 8 and peeing at 11 just before sleeping and getting up at 6:30). Overall this lasted like 3 months, then during another 2 months I still got the alarm, but it seldom rang and only once with a large wet spot and I got my first totally dry week. Finally I got my first straight dry month and stopped wearing the alarm. Both my mum & I wrote a grateful testimony letter to the nurse, she charged 150 $ (which was a certain amount by the end of 1969!)
Since then I had overall less than 10 accidents in 45 years . They occurred during strong flues or big stress … a) Age 18, At college dormitory when waiting to know which university I’ll be in, the next semester b) Age 23, Few months after starting to live with my girl-friend, due to a 102° fever: 2 nites in a week, c) Age 35 to 60 few more isolated accidents due to jet lag (on overseas business trips) after 2 or more sleepless nights.
When I saw the movie “the loneliest runner” by Michael Landon by the end of the 70’s, for the first time, I could feel that some others shared my own experience. I still make nightmares “waking up in a wet bed” or hearing granny in the next room chatting with one of her friends “will Jerry ever stop night-wetting , he claims he really wants to, but with so little results that I wonder if does it deliberately”. Of course my mother was not cruel like the movie character. She was praising me for dry nights, never punished me for wet ones , but at age 13 exactly like the boy in the movie I started to lie (in awkward attempts to hide wet sheets & PJ’s as the packs of diapers got empty). She asked me several times to stop that, but since I continued, I experienced the dirty sheets drying on my window when coming back from school (no bedwetting punishment rather the liar’s retaliation! ). On sunny Monday-afternoons, I used to rush home to check that they no vinyl pants or mattress covers drying on the garden clothe-line and hide them in the garage if any . Years later, when I got these 2 accidents, already living my girl friend, she wanted to talk about it. It was easy for me to rent the video and tell her “watch this movie and you’ll know how more about me”. Then we talked and I discovered that she already knew: I was really angry with my mother therefore.
We married and got 3 boys. The second one was a teen bedwetter (he stopped between 13 & 14, he is now 24). His own experience was less painful than mine. Since my wife knew about my bedwetting history, she did not insist too much with Yohann’s enuresis. Sleep-wetting is no more a shameful family secret: every kid can see Goodnites jumbo packs at Wallmart’s. A good number of ski or summer camps welcomes enuretic kids, care givers are aware of the situation, an occasion for him to share room with other bedwetting big kids. From junior high, he met once a year with a pediatric urologist. His only duty at home was to put his bedding in the washer when necessary, and he had the choice between several practical solutions : There are now very nice and discrete PUL mattress covers (no noise, no perspiration at summer time). There are also disposable sleep-pants not perfect for leaks but far better than vinyl pants + several baby diapers for discretion under PJ’s. Finally when he tried the enuresis alarm there were disposable bed pads unheard of, at my time.
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