@fritzo - as for a return to a work office, you could check with your HR department on applying for a temporary deferment to work from home (assuming you have the kind of job where you can work from home, of course).

Incontinence is an ADA-recognized disability, so employers can take that into consideration. You just have to show how working from home is beneficial to the company, not just you, and try and explain how a “reasonable accommodation” for working in the office doesn’t really exist.

I have a funny story about the whole thing - I’ve been working from home three days a week for 20 years, and full-time for the last seven years.

We all know that post-Covid, there’s been a real push to get people back in their offices, so my employer announced, on the same day that I had my surgery (Jan 7), that workers were expected to be back in their offices five days a week (!) beginning in May.

In March, after giving my bladder a chance to recover, and talking to my managers, and hemming and hawing a while (I don’t like to make waves), I finally sat down and wrote up a request, which was submitted via an online HR portal.

To drive home the necessity of working from home, I was very open and detailed about some of the more graphic aspects of incontinence in a public workspace devoid of single-occupancy restrooms, crossed my fingers, and submitted my request.

Not 15 minutes later, I got an email excusing me indefinitely from the return-to-office mandate, but it wasn’t from HR…it was from our building services group, saying that my house was so far from my office that I didn’t need to come in.

Score!

Though now HR knows all my dirty secrets with respect to my bladder. 😉