May 19, 2010
When it comes to being lucky I should just accept that it's not a readily available vibe for me or anyone within my inner circle. Why I believed that it would be any different in this event of my life is BEYOND me. So when I spun the wheel with my bowels and hoped that the day of sweet release would come on the day that my mom was in the hospital with me as opposed to when my MIL was on duty.....I was truly shit out of luck on that hope.
Since being diagnosed I've let what little bit of modesty I had left fly out the window and have replaced it with the "my give a damn is busted" attitude of "hey, I'm battling cancer...be happy I even put on pants today" type of approach to life. From Day #1 Jon's mother has been there in the hospital being supportive, cheering on every good piece of news and comforting me through the rough parts. No one makes a handout on how you are supposed to approach a situation...any situation, and certainly not a situation that involves the life altering diagnosis of cancer.
Sitting in my hospital room day after day wears you down and makes you question your thought process. When nature called and I went to answer I didn't think twice of the fact that my MIL was in the room. Hell, I would announce that I needed to use the toilet and then I left it up to those around me to clear the area in the time it took me to make my way out of my bed. If you didn't mind...hell I didn't care.
She had seen me pee more times that she or even I would care to count. As I settled onto the "potty chair" which is literally a chair with a toilet seat and bucket that is placed in the room. I had long gotten over the weirdness of the fact that I was doing my business in the middle of my hospital room and not the privacy of a bathroom. I had even come to grips with the fact that I had to exchange toilet paper for moistened handy wipes that made me slightly reminiscent of my diapering days with my kids. And I was willing to chalk up the inability to wipe my own ass in cleanly manner that didn't require utilizing half the pack during one trip on the mass amounts of mind altering medications.
But as I settled into pure potty mode it struck me that this time maybe...no, no I DEFINITELY should have asked for a little privacy. These are the things that the colonistically challenged learn early on. You know when you will have a silent movement one that won't scare the other patrons of the restaurant bathroom and when you need to wrap up whatever moment you are in and find the safety of a very, very, VERY private bathroom.
This next moment....the one that was about to unfold like some bad movie fell squarely in the latter.
It rolled upon me like a wave and before I could even speak up to announce it my body sounded it's own prophetic trumpet of a warning. I cut my eyes at my MIL who tried to smile back and let me know that it was okay but even she could sense the danger on the horizon. It happened so fast that it almost seemed as if it was in slow motion. My body was cutting loose just as the doctors and nurses had wanted (thanks to the two days worth of Senokot tablets) and my MIL was cutting out of the room in a brave attempt to outrun the stench of what was taking hold of both the patient...ME...and the room.
I am all about being a "open book" but seriously...SERIOUSLY?? This was one chapter that I really didn't want to have to share with her. At least if it had been my mother there would have been the unique understanding that she had carried me in her womb for close to 10 months.
What in God's name could I site as reason for taking a shit with my MIL present??
Anyone??
Anybody???
Come on....you gotta dig deep people.
Yeah...I got nothing.
All I could do was sit there. Sit there and let it all unfold. Once in awhile my MIL would beckon through the doorway just beyond the curtain of safety and I would call back, "NO NO don't come in yet". It was more of a..."we don't have an all clear yet" or "we are still at DEFCON 5 status". The terror alert in that room was totally RED. I'd have said it was a no man left behind status but sadly I had to sit there.
Twenty minutes later when the mess of the moment had ended and the reminders of it were both painful and awkward I found myself unable to make eye contact with the MIL. I tried to rationalize that it was a natural process and if the woman could handle the site of me puking, losing my hair and having a million (ok a slight over dramatization..but still it felt like that many) needles poked into me over this whole process to date....what's a little poo between family?
Umm...yeah...it's a HUGE deal no matter how little or big the movement is. But I had to move past it and I hoped she would too. Oh God...I just said "move past it"...now all I am doing is thinking about bowel movements...this is gonna take some work and A LOT more meds.
No comments:
Post a Comment