I had planned to tell people on my own terms. I had a whole timeline. There would be a right moment, a considered conversation, perhaps a tasteful announcement. I would control the narrative.
Instead, my bladder did it for me.
There I was, mid-stride, among people I know, when my body decided that this — right here, right now, in front of everyone — was the moment to go public. No warning. No memo. Just warmth running down my legs and the quiet, dawning realization that I was, in fact, urinating. Present tense. In public. Among peers. Just like that, I was outted.
I have heard of people coming out at family dinners, in heartfelt letters, through carefully worded social media posts. I came out on a sidewalk, in wet pants, mid-stride. I’ll admit, it was not the rollout I envisioned. For years, I had managed Parkinson’s the way you manage a difficult houseguest — quietly, carefully, and with significant effort to make sure nobody else noticed the mess. I told almost no one. I became skilled at the performance of fine. The tremor? A quirk. The gait? An old injury. The elaborate morning ritual just to get functional? Nobody’s business. I was, I believed, successfully passing. Then my bladder staged a coup.
They hand you the diagnosis in a clean office, with a box of tissues nearby and a pamphlet about support groups. The pamphlet has a sunrise on it. Nobody mentions the part where, years later, you’re walking with people you know and suddenly realize, with mild academic interest, that you are urinating. On yourself. In real time. Nobody mentions that this will be how you finally tell people.
Allow me to fill in the gaps. I learned this recently, mid-stride, on what had been, up to that point, an unremarkable walk. There was no warning. No signal. No courtesy knock. One moment I was ambulatory and dignified. The next, I was conducting an unscheduled hydrological event on a public sidewalk. I note this not for sympathy, but for accuracy.
This is what Parkinson’s does. It reassigns functions previously took for granted — walking, sleeping, swallowing, knowing when you are peeing — and manages them on its own schedule. You are not consulted. And for me, I have found it is best to acknowledge the situation, continue walking, and file it under Things That Happened.
There is a version of this story in which I am mortified. I considered that version briefly. Then I kept walking. However, after working in a hospital, I have come to understand that dignity is far more portable than we think. It does not live in your bladder. It does not live in your gait, your handwriting, or your ability to button a shirt without a fifteen-minute negotiation. It lives somewhere considerably harder to reach, and Parkinson’s, to its credit, has not found it yet.
So, pack accordingly.
The disease has a sense of humor. Parkinson’s is, among other things, an absurdist. It will choose the worst possible moment — a meeting, a first date, a previously normal Tuesday — to remind you of its presence. It does not explain itself. It offers no apologies. Therefore, the only reasonable response is humor. It may not be immediately, but eventually one needs to find it.
I was walking. Then I was not walking and also wet. Then I was walking again. The universe did not pause. Neither did I.
That, as it turns out, is the whole guide.
To those newly diagnosed, you will read a lot of material that describes Parkinson’s in terms of stages, timelines, and management strategies. This material is useful. Read it. But know this: on the days when your body does something genuinely ridiculous, you are allowed to find it absurd. You are allowed to tell the story. You are allowed to walk home wet and write about it online.
Nobody puts ‘piss’ in the pamphlet. Consider my experience your addendum.
Both the Buddha and Jesus made the same point: suffering is not the enemy of a meaningful life. It is frequently the entrance to one. Buddhism teaches impermanence — anicca — the truth that everything changes, that clinging to what was is the source of our deepest pain. The body you had before the diagnosis is gone. Grieving that loss is human. But the self that remains, the awareness behind the tremor and the wet pants and the Tuesday surprises, that is not diminished. It is, if anything, more awake. The Buddhist teacher Shunryu Suzuki said that in the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. Parkinson’s has a way of making us all beginners. Every walk is new. Every day is unscripted. That is a loss, yes. It is also, quietly, a kind of freedom.
Christianity offers something equally stubborn: the insistence that nothing — not illness, not humiliation, not the worst Tuesday of your life — is beyond redemption. Paul wrote that he had learned, in whatever state he was in, to be content. Not cured. Not comfortable. Content. There is a difference, and it is everything. The Christian tradition does not promise an easy road. It promises presence on the hard one. Grace, in this tradition, is not the absence of difficulty. It is what shows up inside it, uninvited, the way a strange peace can settle over you when you realize the worst has already happened and you are still, somehow, walking.
I was walking. Then I was wet. Then I was walking again. “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Before embarrassment, chop wood, carry water. After embarrassment, laugh, then chop wood, carry water.
I had always planned to tell people when I was ready. As it turns out, my body was ready on a Tuesday. My bladder knew before I did.