Is it an accident if it doesn't leak from the diaper?

In this Update, I will discuss one of the most esoterically profound questions in the history of man. This brain buster ranks right up there with some of the famously engrossing queries in history: If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is George Bush the missing homo sapien link between chimps and humans? The question is: Is it an accident if it doesn’t leak from the diaper?

Let me preface this thought that will be occupying your minds for the next few minutes (or hours depending on your philosophical endurance) by reminding you that I have spent the last week at Club Sprout with a slow paced group. Now I knew going into the trip that I would be doing a lot of ADL assistance and cleaning up after accidents, but after only a few minutes with the group I started questioning my mettle. (ADL’s are Activities of Daily Living and are used to determine someone’s ability in terms of personal care.)

After 30 minutes of checking hundreds of meds that I would have to figure out how to administer throughout the week, I quickly discovered what the coming week was going to be like. This is when I met Michael, the participant with whom I was to become closer than ever desired. You see, Michael wears diapers… and has little-to-no control over numerous bodily functions. When we had to get off the bus we had just loaded onto because the smell was tinting the windows, I discovered that one of those missing functions was wiping his own ass. At this point, I determined that the prognosis for the week wasn’t good. Thirty minutes into the trip, knuckle deep in Michael’s ass cheeks and wrist deep in feces, all effervescence that occupied my body escaped with a deep sigh.

The Sprout office knew that this trip would require a lot of work and mental (and intestinal) fortitude, so they gave me 4 co-leaders in order to keep a high leader to client ratio. This was very thoughtful of them, but the fact that 3 of them were brand new made our group susceptible to some… unforeseen problems. When 2 out of the 3 new leaders turned out to be… well… inept in this type of work, it left me with one good co-leader who had done 4 trips before and a brand new girl who was surprisingly ready to jump in and help. So essentially we had 3 and ½ leaders for 9 clients (one didn’t show). This would have been a fine ratio on any other trip with higher functioning clients, but with this group, we were facing quite a challenging week. I will say that working with Sprout is by no means easy and not just anyone can step up and be a good leader on their first day. It was quite harsh that the first trip for these girls was the most difficult one they will ever see with Sprout, but then again, being devoid of nearly all common sense doesn’t make things easier.

At the end of day two, the accident total had reached 16 and I lost count from there on. I estimate that there were between 30-40 accidents on the Monday- Friday trip. And I guess you now know what my personal answer is to the previous question. I consider it an accident if it meets any of the following criteria: Clothes need to be changed (especially due to smell). There is any dripping or seepage that is visible to others. I have to clean the urine or shit off of clothing or body parts (especially out of socks and shoes). So for those of you that said it wasn’t an accident if it doesn’t leak out of the diaper, I invite you to change an adult diaper after they have been eating camp food and using your hand in the best described as ‘scooping’ motion and then get back to me. Don’t be fooled though, not much of it stayed in the diapers this week… Ever tried to remove digested salad from socks and shoes? It’s just as unsavory as it sounds.

On Tuesday morning after waking everyone up and bathing Michael from his night swim in a urine pool, I was faced with a dilemma. Michael’s med sheet called for Metamucil. Giving Michael a Fiber supplement was like Israel saying, “Hey Hezbollah, we don’t think you are shooting enough rockets across the border at us so we have decided to supply you with some more.” (This statement is in no way an example of me saying who I think is right or wrong in the conflict in the Middle East. Unlike Fox News, I don’t feel the need to choose sides when both parties have committed obvious wrongs.) Let’s be honest though, this trip was a war… an all-out battle between the participants and the leaders. The participants come armed with leaky diapers, leaky asses, projectile urine, and here I am making strategic suicide by giving him Metamucil? I felt quite mutinous to myself and my co-leaders. We went to battle armed only with rubber gloves and wet-wipes… an obvious defensive ploy. The participants are experienced and cunning in their battle to over-fill laundry bags. They have been fighting this battle long before we were born… I mean who do you think invented the Punji Stick that was made so popular in Nam? Of course… the mentally disabled.

For the majority of the week, I took it upon myself to man the front lines. I didn’t want to ask the new leaders because it wasn’t fair and because 2 of them couldn’t figure out how to cut up a participant’s food without me asking. The other co-leader was willing to help out, but I let her just deal with the one female who had accidents every now and then. Besides, I need her help and experience to lead the new leaders… and the clients too. Sometimes with co-leaders there is a language barrier that causes confusion and difficulty on trips, but this was not the case on my trip. Translation was the problem on hand. Apparently me asking them to be up and ready at 8am to start helping participants get ready easily translated to ‘sleep in until 8:15 when Paul finally wakes us up and then spend 30 minutes getting ourselves ready while he and the other girls do all the work.’ But hey, anyone could mix those up right?

The good news is that I was only urinated on twice during the week… and yes, it was one of those weeks where THAT is considered good. The first instance was just poor timing. I was trying to clean last night’s chick peas out of the shower drain while still cleaning the participant and well, I guess the hot water trick got him. It was just an arm shot so it wasn’t a big deal. The second incident was without a doubt, my fault. I should have known better than to pull down a diaper while squatting in front of the participant. It was a steady stream from shoulder to waist. I figured that was all the foreign substances I had gotten on me, but after returning from the trip, I conveniently found shit on my pants…evidence of inadvertent contact with a matter I spent my week surrounded by.

This was by far my most difficult Sprout trip to date, but nowhere near one of my least favorites. Although the clients required quite a bit of assistance, they were all very sweet and appreciative. Michael and I sang Beatles songs in the shower and the other clients couldn’t have been cuter. I have no problem cleaning up after really sweet participants. They make all the hard work worth it. It’s some of the higher functioning and annoying clients that make the weeks go by slowly.

I don’t have another trip for a week. I am spending the time relaxing and leading a few New York City day trips. I’m not sure where my trip leaves for next Monday, but I will be sure to tell you all how it goes.

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