Pees and Queues

As many men reach a certain age – that age being at least a decade-and-a-half more than they are publicly willing to admit – they begin to experience inconsonant issues.

Oh, sorry – I meant incondiment issues.

Dammit – I am consonantly misspelling “incontinence.” Incontinence, derived from the Latin and meaning “within large and distinct land masses,” is a medical issue defined by the loss of bladder control. Symptoms range from an increased urge to urinate, to an inability to completely empty the bladder, to the irrepressible release of urine, often at the least opportune time. Another common symptom of incontinence is the lack of all pretense at discretion regarding the discussion of urinary problems in social settings.

I, myself – barely in my mid-60s early 50s – have begun to experience the vexation of this affliction. I can pee every thirty minutes, whether I have to or not. I can pee, zip up, wash my hands – and then have to pee again. Oftentimes that second pee is more voluminous than the original, thought-I-was-all-done pee. And if I really put my bladder to it, I can occasionally initiate a third flow of urine that puts the first two to shame.

See what I mean by “lack of all pretense at discretion”?

Another word for “urinate” is “micturate”; however, it is only used in clinical settings or when urologists are three sheets to the wind at a professional conference.

The most common basis of male incontinence is an enlarged prostate gland. The second-most common source for claims of male incontinence is when a man says he’s willing to watch the movie Eat, Pray, Love with his female partner, but needs to duck into the bathroom to check how his bracket is doing during March Madness.

The most frustrating thing about male incompetence incontinence is when it interrupts a night’s sleep. The need to get out of bed repeatedly, for reasons other than checking on how one’s bracket is doing during March Madness or to quickly scroll through PornHub for any new videos, makes it next to impossible to get through a proper sleep cycle. The resulting drowsiness can present its own bevy of complications – inattentiveness, depression, high blood pressure, and forgetting the importance of launching a private, untraceable browser session when searching for videos on PornHub.

There are medical and behavioral changes that may help with bladder problems. For those so inclined, visualization can also be an effective treatment strategy – forming a mental picture of a catheter and its attendant utilization can result in an abrupt retreat from the compulsion to micturate.

I am awaiting a referral to a (hopefully sobered-up) urologist, having gone through a trial of a medication that had a minimal effect. To that end, I recently had to provide a so-called “clean catch” urine specimen. I won’t go into the details of that process here, but I will share a memory from when I was eight years old and went into the hospital to have my tonsils removed. The day before my surgery, a nurse handed me a bottle and asked if I could provide a urine sample, pointing me to a bathroom I could use for that purpose. I locked the door behind me, pulled down my pants, and tried my best to direct the stream into the tiny receptacle I had placed down on the floor – since, like most little boys, I used both hands when making wee-wee. I exited the bathroom and handed my container to the nurse, who appeared a bit flummoxed when encountering its damp exterior. When the same nurse came the next morning to administer an injection prior to my procedure, she jabbed me with what those in the patient care business describe as “unfettered retribution.”

I understand it will be at least six weeks before I’ll even get a call about scheduling an appointment with the specialist, but I won’t share any updates post-urology exam and diagnosis since, upon reflection, this topic has proven to be a piss-poor excuse for humor.