how to say “sorry, but I really have to pee, again” in a professional way

A reader writes:

I have a tendency to have frequent UTI’s. They’re easily treated and not dangerous, but they make my life annoying for 1-2 days before the meds kick in. I am not in pain but I might really, really need to visit the bathroom on a very short notice and very often, at worst every 15 minutes or so. At best, I’m fine an hour after I take the first pill. There’s no way to know beforehand which way it’ll go.

I’m looking for advice on dealing with the problems this causes in my work; healthwise, I am fine and am working with my doctor to prevent the UTI’s as much as possible. But it’s a feature my body has had for ~25 years, so “not having them” isn’t a super reliable plan on its own.

I have taken sick days for the symptoms, but it feels excessive because I’m completely fine as long as I can take a quick break when needed. I have also tried working from home, but that still doesn’t solve this problem because I manage multiple projects and frequently lead long meetings/workshops involving several departments and outside vendors. So I can’t exactly pop out without everyone noticing, and even when remote it’s unlikely I could discreetly just vanish for a bit. There’s also no point in having the meetings without me, since I’m the one leading them and doing most of the talking.

I could always reschedule; people are very understanding if someone is unwell, and a quick “sorry, but I can’t unfortunately make it today” is enough info. But rescheduling usually means having to move the meeting by several weeks or months, which disturbs everyone’s work and delays the project timeline. It also creates unnecessary extra work for me, which I’d rather avoid!

Ideally, I’d want to just keep the meetings so everyone can move forward with their life and work. But during these days, my options seem to be either to (a) suck it up (and risk ending up squirming on my seat like an anxious kindergartner), (b) randomly excuse myself from the meeting without giving any reason (and risk people worrying there’s something wrong), or (c) excuse myself with some variation of “sorry, I have a condition and might need to quickly pop out for quite a few times” (and risk people thinking I’m, I dunno, sniffing cocaine? Using AI to cover my lack of knowledge? Screaming into the void in the supply closet? Having stomach problems and about to accidentally infect everyone with norovirus?).

I’m getting extremely frustrated that I have to cause all this extra work for myself and others for what feels like a very silly reason. I’m not in pain or even tired, I just might need to use the bathroom a bit more often and on a shorter notice than usually. What’s your take on this? Should I just learn to deal with the frustration? Or could I ask for some kind of an accommodation? I’m not sure what exactly that would look like. Or is there perhaps some believable excuse I could casually use to pop out of meetings when needed? Or, is there some professional script for “Before we start, just a quick heads-up that I might need to go pee quite often. Nothing to worry about, everything’s fine. Now, there’s been some national changes in walrus rental prices, so let’s look into that first…”

At the start of meetings, say this: “Before we start, a heads-up that I may need to step out multiple times for a quick medical thing. It’s nothing to worry about, just something I have to deal with when it comes up, and it’s flaring up today.”

That’s it! You don’t owe anyone details beyond that, and this gives them all the info that matters for their purposes.

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