Not in polite society...but I'm going to talk about it

There is a part of surgery recovery that I never talked about because it's just not something that "good" people talk about in polite society.  It refers to something that some body scholars call "leaky bodies"....and I'm going to talk about my own "leaky body."  I'm also going to tie this with a Crowdtap sample that I received from Cottonelle.

I hadn't seriously considered how a mundane activity like using the bathroom would change.  I read forums on Spine-Health and read about gadgets for extending a person's reach with toilet paper...but it wasn't until the day after surgery, until the nurse took out the catheter, that the "no bending or twisting" rule really connected to the toilet.

As a fat dwarf that had just had spine surgery, there is no way to clean up without bending or twisting...without either mechanical or human help.  It's also absolutely exhausting, complicated by the side effects of anesthesia plus pain medications plus difficulty in physically moving (did you know that physical activity helps keep your digestion going smoothly?  It does...especially with bending and twisting the torso).  Once the occupational therapist armed me with a long set of tongs that I could hold a wad of toilet paper, life got a little better.  Once I figured out how much flushable wet wipes could help, life was better.

Some of the folks in the Spine-Health forum suggested wet wipes for washing their body until the surgeon cleared them for showering, but I quickly realized that flushable wipes would help my poor recovering body feel clean more quickly.  The also worked better with the bathroom tongs as one wipe wrapped around the tongs just enough to be secure yet come off easily without touching it.

When I had the opportunity to do a Sample and Share for Cottonelle's flushable cleansing cloths, I jumped at it because of how much better my recovery was because of a simple product.  It helped that I could get an "adaptive aid" from any store that sold toilet paper, and the fact that this product is being marketed to the normative leaky body (because we all create bodily waste).  It feels like an attempt at universal design for the toilet.

In short, they've made a product that really made my recovery experience easier.  Good job!