Dear Large Intestine,
Oh my dearly departed, there is so much I wish to say to you. I suppose I can best sum up my feelings with these three simple sentiments; I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you.
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Dear Large Intestine,
Oh my dearly departed, now that I have formally apologized I can express how much I miss you.
I miss you every day, sometimes every hour and sometimes every moment. I miss the ease you gave me when you were around, the confidence, the solidity. I even miss the noises you made. In fact, I may miss those most.
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Dear Large Intestine,
I’ve come to my final words to you. I feel the weight of that, the pressure to get it right and yet, all that is really left to say is; I love you.
I love you. If only I knew how much while you were still with me, maybe things could have been different. I wish I didn’t have to navigate this life without you, but I can’t keep looking back.
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Missing out and chronic illness, for me, go hand in hand. Part of this is energy, not having it. But a larger slice of the missing out pie is my aversion to humiliation and germs and my fondness of cleanliness. Do you know what a bathroom in a bar or at a concert looks like? Do you want to get all intimate and cozy with that toilet and do anything other than hover over it to pee? Me neither.
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Today is my 37th birthday. In the last four of my thirty seven years, I have been gutted six times. Literally. Not dumped by a lover gutted, not lost a job gutted, actually gutted, like gutted, gutted. As in, my intestines, and perhaps other organs, have been taken outside of my body, manipulated for a few hours, deleted-cut-pasted and then either gingerly or perhaps more like a poor turkey, stuffed back in. I’m not sure, I wasn’t there. I mean I was, but I was unconscious.
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This is the first thing I want to say to every new person I meet. Clients who I’m working for, friends of friends, a new teacher, waitresses, anyone and everyone. Hi, nice to meet you, I don’t have a colon. Why? Because I’m ashamed and I want you to like me. Because I don’t have the privilege of confining my bowel movements to the comfort of my home (unless I become a hermit) and I dont want you to think I’m disgusting.
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In 2007 I awoke in a hospital in southern Vermont to a doctor leaning over my groggy face and asking; “Are you Jewish?” In my post first colonoscopy state, I didn’t register that this was perhaps an odd question, and just replied; Yes. “You have Ulcerative Colitis. It’s more common in the Jewish population.” That was it, off I went with a bottle of anti-inflamatory medication and little idea what that meant for my present life or my future.
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My husband recently took a surf lesson. We’ve been surfing together for three years, but he was getting frustrated with not knowing why he wasn’t catching as many waves as he thought he should be. I was in the water as well during his lesson, and overheard his instructor tell him this; “Sometimes you just have to go for it and the wave will either accept you, or it won’t.”
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I know. How CHEESY! How Cliche! “The gifts of illness.” If this gives you pause for a much deserved eye roll, I am WITH you. I annoyed myself as I typed it. Plus, I have wanted to smack people who have said anything resembling this to me. More than once. Of course, instead I smiled politely and defeatedly said something as I sighed, like, “ I know, you are right.” But, what I was thinking was “ Bitch, you crazy! Chronic illness SUCKSSSSS.” Totally sucks.
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The call you will likely hear resound when illness comes is a battle cry. Fight. Beat. Kill or be killed. I heard this cry when disease came my way and I yelled back; “War.” I fought through. I muscled on. I battled. I steeled against. Put on a brave face. Held tight. Closed my hands into fists and held my breath. I shot, aimed to kill. Warrior, “you are so strong.” I allowed disease and the curveballs of chronic illness to harden me.
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