Photo Credit (Brenda Hollaway) |
“Why does she keep doing that?” exclaimed a very observant student in my
classroom last week. If you were
standing next to him, you would have known that he was talking about what
seemed to be a new dance move. In the
middle of my lessons, I would stop talking, cross my legs, squeeze my body as
upright as it could be and gently, as gently as one can, I would cough or
sneeze. Nevertheless, I assure you the
cross-legged-up-right-squeeze had nothing at all to do with a new dance
craze. Nothing. At.
All.
So moms get
sick. This isn’t news. We get sick and we continue our days as if we
aren’t sick. This isn’t news
either. I would go so far to say that
moms could actually believe even in the face of a 102 on a thermometer, kidney
pains, chills and sweats, a hacking cough and sneezes into the hundreds, that
they just have a titch of a cold that will go away…soon. Therefore,
it is perfectly fine to keep on keepin’ on like we always do; morning
routine, schlepping kids to day care, off to work with a cheery smile on our
green tinged faces, working through the runny noses by shoving tissues up our
sleeves for those little emergencies, putting on a sweater (“is it chilly in
here?”) taking off the sweater, (“who turned up the freakin’ heat?”) Whatever
comes with the flu and sick season, we ignore because well how WOULD the world
revolve without us running it?
However…there is one thing that MAY come with a flu
or cold or say searing bronchial virus that we Mudders are unable to
ignore. We may try at first, but
ultimately for the sake of hygiene and those around us, heck for the sake of
the size of the laundry in the hamper we cannot ignore the incontinence that
comes with a humongous hacking cough or a significant-sized sneeze. That’s right, girls, you heard me. I said it…incontinence, incontinence,
incontinence.
You know how it goes…cough cough—drip drip—“Shit
shit!!” Or in my case, hack hack—pour
pour—“Shit! Shit!” If you have had the
pleasure of a weak pelvic floor due to the “joyous” process called childbirth,
you are nodding your head right now. Yes
you are nodding and I am about to SING it girls!
This past week, I did what Mudders do. I had a virus. I ignored said virus. I went to work as if there wasn’t a thing
wrong with me. Moreover, when I say
ignore, I mean totally and utterly ignore.
If you are following me here that means that not only did I not go to
the doctors or take medicine, I did not even think to…ehem…prepare my delicates
for the incontinence that was sure to take place with every sneeze and every
cough. And because of my denial, I was
constantly placed in a situation where at any moment, with the next sneeze or
the next cough, I could very well wet my pants in front of all my
students. So I did the dance of shame;
legs crossed, muscles squeezed as tightly as they can, stand tall and
COOOOUUUGHHH and SNEEEEEEEZE—gently—oh so gently—unfortunately a raging
bronchial virus doesn’t allow for gentle anything…and so there were of course
the occasional--drip-slips. Oh, don’t
act as if you don’t know what they are!
You are ALL feeling me and you KNOW it!!
However, even those drip-slips couldn’t make me
admit defeat. I didn’t need Depends or a
bulky pad…no, no. Toilet paper would do
the trick, and so after my first drip-slip, I headed to the teacher’s bathroom
folded myself up a nice stack of TP and placed it where the sun don’t
shine. It may have meant that I headed
to the bathroom an inordinate amount of times to change the soggy fibrous paper
that kept giving me giant whoo-whoo wedgies, but hey, it was doing the trick
and perpetuated my denial that I was handling this teeny tiny little cold just
fine.
Then Saturday day came and it was just me, Ila and
teeny tiny little cold that just happened to make me gasp for air as a teenage
girl gasps when she sees Justin Bieber.
I was home and so there was no need for that irritating TP. Instead, ever in mommy-denial, as the hacks
got worse and the drip-slips turned to rain-drains, (you heard me) I took to
changing my skivvies and sweat pants every hour on the hour…until…until I ran
out. Yup—ran clean out of clean
undies. Not a pair to be found in the
top drawer of my dresser. Honestly, I can’t
ever remember a time where there wasn’t at least SOME pair of clean hip huggers
that I could fish out at a moment’s notice.
This dear readers was a first, and with the first came a realization—I. Was.
Sick. I must be sick…I was out of
skivvies, out of sweats and out of my beloved Vera Wang silky pajama
bottoms. All were dejectedly sitting in
the hamper at the end of the hall, a little wet, a little stinky and extremely
indicative of the level of my illness.
And so, I did what any mother does when shaken out
of sick-denial. I called my doctor, who
after listening to me gasp for air told me to go to my local emergency room
immediately. Of course, “immediately”
posed a problem for me because “I hadn’t a thing to wear.” And while that phrase conjures images of me
tossing skirts and jeans and cashmere sweaters over my head, it was meant of
course in its most literal sense…I hadn’t an UNDERTHING to wear. So with a hopeful heart, I walked to the
basement laundry room hoping that with all the other duties he took on during
my sick-week-that-I-was-not –sick, my husband perhaps had done SOME kind of
laundry. (Although the size of the
hamper upstairs didn’t give me much hope…after all…he is a great caretaker, but
I am sure that even HE drew the line at washing all my drip-slips and
rain-drains.)
But lucky for me, a “sort” of undergarment was
clean…all right it was a Spanx body suit…but this girl was desperate. So after slipping that on, I had to find
something that would be comfortable enough for a stay at the emergency
room. I decided on my hubby’s Nike
running pants (much to his dismay. Can
you blame the guy?) However, dear
Mudders, I do know that wearing your husband’s Nike running pants comes with
great responsibility. So I doubled up
the amount of toilet paper and tucked it into the body suit. I willed myself not to cough or sneeze as I
rode in the car, and instead of driving right to the emergency room, stopped
into my local Walgreens to buy a package of bulky pads. You know the kind—smaller than a breadbasket
and bigger than my hand with wings to wrap around the sides of my makeshift
undergarment. The kind would be sure to protect my husband’s beloved Nike
running pants from the rain-drains that would certainly continue because there
is no denying the incontinence that a Mudder gets when
she is indeed sick.