Touching Me

I felt compelled to admit something which I find personally embarrasing to my HCA, Samhar, today. We were discussing the best method for getting my external catheters to hold properly. It was a problem again last night, a problem with messy consequences. Inevitably the discussion turned to the benefits for the glue if I have a semi-erect penis. This is a decidedly difficult topic for me. The admission I had to make to Sam is that it is also a process which kind of feels good, so I feel improper when discussing it with an HCA.

The wonderful thing about Samhar is she has no issues in discussing this most personal of topics with me. Her first response was "Of course it feels good. It feels good for everybody." Of course my well tuned North American sense of personal shame about anything feeling good jumped to the fore. I said to her that this was an intimate act that didn't seem right with a care worker, especially one with a husband and two children. She said "Don't be silly. It's a part of life for everyone. It's natural."

I continued to have difficulty with having the discussion in an unstilted, direct manner. So Sam told me the story of her five year old boy, a story she has told me before when I first started needing serious help with the catheters. She was dressing him one day when she noticed he had an erect penis. It happens on little boys, even babies in the womb. As she says, it is a natural function. As to her son, she looked at him and he said "It's okay, Mommy. I'm just playing." Samhar laughed, her boy laughed. I think she also took a layer of shame away from him, something so valuable in mental well being.

Her point in telling me this story was to help me with my own shame about my body, my reactions to having my private parts touched, sometimes at length and in stimulating ways. This has always been one of the most difficult parts of care for me, accepting that these women are touching me in intimate places, in ways that have to happen but have unintended consequences. It doesn't seem to bother any of them as much as it bothers me.

I am sure part of it is my fear of being accused of something sexual when in fact it is something over which I have little control. Another part is my natural embarrasment, courtesy of our Puritan society, about being touched like that. Then, all I do is think about Samhar's little boy. It's okay. I just have to get used to it.