PEE-king

If you are wondering about the timing of this post I just picked up these sweat pants today from the seamstress who lives across the street.  ( I KNOW!  We live in the most perfect place.  This area has absolutely everything within a mile).  

What is unique about them?  Do you know?

Before ALS I was a very private person and my siblings loved to torment me to no end by hollering embarrassing questions down grocery aisles to watch me cringe but between healthcare people in our personal space and doctors asking every personal question you can imagine and checking every crack and crevice and me taking care of absolutely every single personal need for Tracy I have out of practicality, become much more open about discussing these issues.

So you won't have to ask, I am going to let you in on a few tips to take care of this very important daily function of life.  Peeing.

What you take for granted takes us a good deal of time and planning to make sure "everything works out okay".  Most handicap restrooms are not actually accessible.  Slapping the little blue wheelchair logo on the door DOES NOT in fact actually make it easier to get in and out of the restroom!  Things take a lot more time to get organized so you have to start way early.  Drinking enough but not to much too fast is important.  Actually FINDING a bathroom must be first thing when you roll in the door somewhere.  Carrying a portable potty (Gatorade Bottle) in the back pack has been a life saver on many occasions.

What do these pants have to do with it?  

Well, I tweaked my back last week, making it difficult to stand Tracy up to ...to - ya know...  So Tracy was forced to sit in his chair to take care of things.  With the very expensive and very limited fashion choices given to wheelie people we choose to wear regular clothes and struggle with the inconvenience in exchange for dignity, vanity and fashion.  Often times we will wear the college kids pajama pants that have a fly front. They are comfy, easy to wash and it is easy to deal with the elastic waist.  

It's been cold here in Dallas the past few weeks so I would usually dress him in some hip sporty sweatpants except that they have no fly front. (Yes, that was our very fashionable daughter Sarah's head exploding at the words hip at all but most especially near the word sweatpants).

So after making him wear the same 3 pairs of pants for the last couple weeks it dawned on me that if his sweats had a fly it would make things so much easier.  Surprise! The whole point to sweats is they are easy to pull on and off so they don't make them with a fly.

So for $5 a pair our neighbor took the fabric from the pockets that Tracy doesn't use and created these easy access pants for us!  Problem solved.