Well, it’s happened three times now. Twice in the last two days.
I wake up. I am vaguely aware of strong tingling sensation from roughly my lumbar region to the bottoms of my buttocks. I am not yet awake enough to register this as being a problem, though that might change soon.
I sit up a bit, and that’s when the sensation of REALLY NEEDING TO BE ON THE TOILET NOW NOW NOW hits, and I hoof it for the toilet.
But it is already too late.
Because I have already…. started.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have literally shit the bed.
And probably dropped some highly unwelcome brown deposits on the way the to the blessed relief of the toilet too.
So in essence, I have starting shitting the bed in my sleep.
Gee, turns out I DID have some dignity left! Bye bye.
Now I have been specifically instructed multiple times and by multiple medical professionals to alert them immediately if there is any change in my bowel or bladder function, and lordy does this shit count.
So to speak.
So when I talk to Doc Chao on the phone tomorrow, this will be the first thing I bring up. Yes, I still want to talk about the CT scan, but this is, I think, more pressing.
And more depressing.
I mean, not being able to walk is bad enough but looking at a future where I have to wear a diaper to bed is far, far worse.
I mean, I will do it if I have to, I guess, but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.
But there is a reason the medical world wants to know right away if something like this happens and that’s because it’s a pretty bad sign.
To put it lightly.
When the bathroom functions start to go, that generally means something pretty bad is going down on the neurological front.
This could well be a sign that my spine is fucked, and that could mean anything up to and including losing the use of my legs entirely.
I pray it doesn’t come to that, but it might.
And all I can do at this point is shrug and say “I guess this was destined to happen”, because it only looks like there was all kinds of things I “could” have done to prevent things from getting this bad.
But I couldn’t. Still can’t. I can’t make myself do them. I don’t have enough of whatever you want to call the internal resource it would take – willpower, motivation, chutzpah, sheer bloody-minded determination, whatever – for me to be able to power through my aversions and overpower my inner demon and get things things done.
Any of the many, many, many horrible things my undertreated diabetes had done to me “should” have been enough to motivate me to shape the hell up and live right.
But they weren’t. In fact, they never stood a chance. The brutal truth is that if it doesn’t keep me from playing video games all day, I don’t care about it. Or myself.
Horrible skin lesions? Whatever. They don’t hurt and thus are easily ignored in favour of feeding my video game addiction.
Pneumonia? Scary for a while but I got over it. No big deal. Back to the games.
Nasty infections gunning for my life? Antibiotics. Gone now. Whatever.
I simply do not have what it takes to survive. My mental health is too poor for me to look after my physical health, and my poor physical health is a major factor in why I have such bad mental health.
I cannot care for myself.
Left to my own devices, I will die, because my devices suck.
Depression can be seen as a disease of the devices, in fact.
So all I can do is wait till I end up in the hospital where trained medical professionals will be forced to care for me.
And that’s just what the sickest part of me wants.
More after the break.
Moron water abuse
Sorry, that should read “More on water abuse”.
I’ve been cutting down on the water intake. Trying to wean myself away from needing to be drinking water all the time.
I think part of it is simply being addicted to the pleasure of drinking water. It’s a small pleasure, admittedly, but extremely reliable and accessible.
It’s so easy to keep that water glass full so I can give my little sips of pleasure every few minutes and/or when there is a natural pause in what I am doing (video game loading screens are great for that) and it’s such a wholesome seeming thing.
I mean, what do they tell people to do when they are sick?
Drink plenty of fluids!
Anyhow, so far it has not been too onerous to slow things down a bit. I am not experiencing any withdrawal symptoms besides that vague sense of wrongness you always get when you are trying to change a habit.
Some part of your mind is like, “wait…. there’s something that is supposed to be here… something is usually happening at this point…. ”
No big whoop. I will just wait it out. It is, at best, mildly annoying.
Intriguingly, salty foods are beginning to taste really good for me. So my body is clearly trying to get back to the right sodium level.
It amuses me to think about how I am probably the only fat dude in his late 40’s who has to add MORE salt to his diet to be healthy.
Overall, I am glad I never had the SUPER unhealthy eating habits. Mine were pretty bad when I was using chips and other salty snacks as a side dish for every meal, but that is nowhere near the “always eating junk food” fat person.
They do that both because they are deeply addicted to food pleasure and because one (terrible) way to treat a sugar crash is another sugar high.
Those are the poor people who are driving their health into the ground at meteor impact speed. I do not envy them THEIR journey towards health, which will be far harder than mine will ever be.
I’ve never been a binge eater. I almost never ate my emotions.
Mostly that was due to not having money, but still, it counts.
That’s why it was really no big deal to change my diet to eliminate carbs. I miss the cheap carb laden snacks of yesteryear sometimes, but I don’t crave them.
The bad food was never a deeply ingrained habit for me.
Switching from chips and pretzels to nuts and berries (aka trail mix) was just a matter of switching from food I like to food I like almost as much.
I miss the flavours of things like Doritos, Cheetos, and chips but I do not miss the carbs.
Can’t believe I lived like that for so long. Disgusting.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.