(Trigger warning. This entry contains multiple references to diarrhea.)
I have a friend who’s crippled for the same reason I am. He’s
also about the same age as me.
I’ve written before about how this friend is getting this new
treatment that supposedly might make life marginally better for people who are
crippled for the same reason we are. But the treatment required getting a
monthly spinal injection. So I said no thanks. I’m just not into pursuing
cripple treatments and cures that require any more effort than eating my
spinach. Maybe I’m just lazy, but I tell myself it’s a quality of life thing.
Rather than running back and forth to a doctor’s office or working out
incessantly in a physical therapy gym for countless hours, I’d rather spend
whatever time I have left doing things I find much more fulfilling, like
staring at the wall.
But recently my friend told me that the treatment no longer
requires spinal injections. Now he just takes an oral medication daily. This
prompted me to consider reconsidering signing up for this treatment. That didn’t
sound like much effort. My friend told me the name of the medication and I
thought about asking my doctor about it.
But there’s been a dramatic new development that has made me reconsider
any thought of reconsidering. My friend has informed me that a side effect of
the medication is that it sometimes gives him diarrhea. Diarrhea is one of my
worst nightmares because in order for me to take a dump, I need someone to lift me on
and off the bowl. So it’s imperative that I have well–trained, cooperative,
predictable, disciplined bowels that only rumble during the designated hours when I’ve
scheduled someone to be around to lift me on and off of the bowl. An uprising
at any other time of day is, obviously, a source of great stress for me.
Thus far in life, I’ve been blessed with a tremendous talent for holding it all in until such time as it's safe to let loose. This is such a gift
that it’s almost enough to make me believe in God.
So I won’t be signing up for this cripple treatment, even if
it is just a simple matter of taking a daily dose of oral medication. I dare not
thumb my nose at fate like that.
