Yup. More poop talk.
Had another “incident” this morning, though I didn’t realize it at first. I had already muzzily made it to the computer and the fact that there was a fecal odor in the air had made some sort of impression on my sleep-addled brain but it wasn’t until I moved a little and felt a certain kind of moisture under my buttocks that I realized something was seriously amiss in my southern regions.
Got up off the chair and yup, there was a big smear of poop there. I wiped that up with a Kleenex, then sat back down, and only then did it occur to me : um, but what about where that poop came from?
Got up again, and yup, there was a new, smaller smear of poop there. Duh. This time I wiped it up then wiped my ass too.
There was one more surprise waiting, but this one was almost pleasant. I discovered that, like a well trained puppy, I had managed to poop mostly on another very unfortunate McDonald’s bag and not the bed, so cleanup was easy.
So I may still be having “accidents” but at least I’ve learned to go on the paper.
This unpleasant discovery was the deciding factor in my choice to not go to wound care this morning. I had already been feeling poorly – the usual scratchy lungs, throat, and ears – but now I realized that the contents of my intestines were still feeling rather fluid and as bad as literally shitting the bed is, it’s got nothing on it happening in public.
Imagine if it happened in the car.
Insert melodramatic shudder here.
It would actually be better, if it had to happen, if it happened at the Community Care Clinic, because nurses are trained to handle that kind of thing and they certainly always have excellent cleaning supplies on hand.
Perhaps I am overthinking this.
And now we come to the portion of the incident report where I ponder what it all means. This is the second incident in what, three days? four? and that seems to suggest something is afoot down below.
The big worry is that it has something to do with my spine. I do have a hairline fracture on my L4 vertebra, after all, and that’s not good.
I don’t think it’s that, though. I have no other neurological symptoms (well, no new ones anyhow) and the way the contents of my digestive tract keep going gooey suggests that it’s a containment issue, not a spasmodic one.
Oh, one worrying detail : the insufficiently contained substance was not its normal color at all. It was light tan, not the usual dark brown, and that worried me because I seem to recall that possibly indicating a problem with the spleen.
Spleen is a funny word.
I just looked it up. Apparently it can indicate a problem in the gallbladder, pancreas, or liver, which are all part of your “biliary” system which acts as a drain for those organs.
Well obviously it can’t be a gallbladder problem because I ain’t got one. Mine was taken out a very long time ago.
But the other two are up for grabs.
It could be that my untreated umbilical hernia is acting up somehow. That thing’s been on my mind lately as a possible factor in a number of issues that I have had with my digestive and urinary tracts over the years.
I suppose I should at least get someone to look at it to see if it’s time for a surgical intervention or not.
Then again, I have had my lower abdomen imaged a few times in the last five years, so perhaps another look at the hernia would be redundant.
You know I think I’ve had that thing since high school?
More after the break.
You know, it just occurred to me that two of my favorite chocolate bars when I was a kid were the Skor bar and Crispy Crunch, both of which can shred your palate.
Was I just a masochist? Did I just enjoy my chocolate with a hint of dangerous?
I think I just really liked butter toffee.
I still do!
It’s okay to be okay
Let’s gnaw on this topic for a while.
Call it, “Is there a crisis?”, because it has to do with my feeling that there is always something I should be doing, but I don’t know what it is and so I am not doing it.
I’ve had very bad nightmares like that. Some of my worst, in fact.
That feeling has evolved into this sense that my time for making something of myself is running out and I need to get on it NOW NOW NOW before it’s too late.
And that’s just not helpful.
That just creates the very kind of pressure that I hide from and thus it just sends me even deeper into myself and away from any ability to cope with the real world at all.
Ditto for all my talk of being trapped in his shithole life of mine. And my talk about how shitty my life is, come to think of it.
I mean, that all represents genuine anger and frustration in me, granted. I am deeply grief-stricken AND pissed off at how mental illness took thirty fucking years of my life – my entire adulthood so far – and I am just barely waking up from that funk now.
And all those emotions have to go somewhere. Maybe crisis mode is not a good final destination for them but it’s at least a move in the right direction.
I know in my heart that I would be far better off if I could approach life with open-hearted joy and a sense of wonder and enchantment where I greeted every new day with breathless anticipation of all the fun stuff I was going to do.
Um yeah. That’s not going to happen. I am the wrong generation for that shit.
The point, though, is that I need a deep and fundamental shift of attitude to something more accepting and forgiving and thus compatible with my happiness.
Survival isn’t enough. Survival is easy.
It’s thriving that’s hard.
But I’m going to get there, god damn it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.