Rec and Sports

Bagging A Gator: Facing Incontinence

[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/davewalkerimage13.jpg]I am entering a lottery that half of me secretly hopes I don’t win.

The fierce hunk of luggage leather known as the American Alligator draws no sympathy from me. My great aunt learned to never garden with her back to the canal on account of one of these sneaky reptiles and it was a close call. This cold blooded critter enjoys a nonsensical but legally protected status even though it is not an endangered species with little to no natural predators of its own. The Department of Natural Resources literature has very little to offer in defense of the alligator beyond some muzzy mention of ‘helping to keep other species’ population under control’.

Alligator population in South Carolina alone is thought to be about 100,000 and a number of them have started hiding under cars in my local mall’s parking lot for the fun of it. When drainage ditches in populous areas make for their habitat, there is something ludicrous about a regulatory sign that tells citizens not to harass the alligators. Perhaps that has something to do with the Department of Natural Resources opening up a hunting license lottery for a lucky one thousand gator hunters this season, allowing the bagging of gators ranging anywhere in size from 4 feet in length to a rare but possible 16 feet.

Not being a gambling woman under normal circumstances, I didn’t check my odds before agreeing to paying for my spot in the lottery. I rationalized that I never win anything so there was nothing to worry about, no personal face to lose. So now I find out that only several hundred people entered last year and everyone was a lucky winner with licenses to spare. To save face, I cannot back out now. So how did I get in this jam to begin with?

My next door neighbor, Walt, is to blame as I figure it. He knows I get wound up about alligators and he has capitalized on that for some personal diversion. Ever since his prostate surgery, Walt has been aggravated about the toll it took on him and he has been antsy to get back into the great outdoors that he has avidly hunted and fished in all his life. He is thankful that his cancer is being effectively dealt with but he is determined to regain his sportsman’s stride more quickly than the doctors predicted. It is a matter of pride with him as much as it is survival. So when it comes to pride, his experiencing temporary SUI (Stress Urinary Incontinence) is a major thorn in his side. And Walt being Walt, he is not shy about saying so.

Everyone drops in on Walt via the garage door. It is a gaping maw at the end of his driveway, always pushed open when the earl is holding court. The knotty pine paneled walls are decked with testaments to his outdoorsmanship. Unearthly long snake skins, a mangy bobcat head and the piece de resistance, a monster alligator skin. For me, it is like looking at a car wreck; I can’t help myself despite a predictable case of the shivers every single time. As though pulled by a marionette string, my hand thrusts forward to trace the ridged distance from eyes to nostrils. Fascinatingly, this distance in inches serves as a good guesstimate for the beast’s actual length in feet. Handy stuff to know when sizing up a submerged gator.

A few days after his surgery, I was in the garage dropping off a casserole for him and doing my finger walking routine down the bumpy snout when Walt spilled his guts. “Well, Sister, I don’t know what kind of a man I am anymore, what with peein’ my pants and all these days. I probably should just buy me a rockin’ chair and some shares in one of them adult diapers companies.” He knew darn well that was my line of work and maybe that was why he felt so free to share his chagrin.

Walt is neither an ingrate nor a dummy. He is well aware that his run in with prostate cancer was serious and that he is a lucky man to have the hopeful prognosis that he does. But the temporary incontinence he was having to endure was more than he was willing to countenance. He had a stack of pamphlets and brochures at one end of the bar, filled with medical diagrams and cheerful older male model faces, all intended to calm as well as inform the post prostatectomy patient.

The pamphlets illustrated how the prostate wraps the urethra and how surgery or radiation can possibly lead to various degrees of incontinence, most of which will improve or disappear with time or other surgical intervention. After a prostatectomy or radiation, the sphincter muscles that hold back bladder flow either need time to regain control or the help of some other medical intervention. All workable solutions, all reassuring.

Walt wasn’t having much to do with these calming attempts. There were nagging questions, I could see that behind his joshing about shopping for adult diapers, pads or whatever the hell you called them, as he put it. Then with the swing of a pendulum, he changed the subject. “I could use some cheering up and I know just what it would take.” He reached under the bar like a saloon keeper in some kind of Wild West film and pulled out a battery of underwater artillery, his harpoon and trusty bang stick. “It’s time for you to bag some luggage material for yourself, girl.”

So here I am, putting my electronic signature to the DNR application and wondering how I will react when my flashlight catches the red glow of those close set eyes from my perch in the boat as we float through the cypress swamp about twenty miles from here that is a favorite of Walt’s. His son, an experienced hunter himself, is coming along, too. I extracted that promise from him even though it may have hurt his feelings a little. I suspect I will be no help myself, once the quarry is snared and thrashing alongside the boat. I also told Walt I may be planning a little foray into adult diapers myself for the occasion; terror and incontinence are no strangers to each other.