MAY 8, 2006

THE UNWANTED EXTRAS

I used to think that by having Crohn’s Disease, I was immune to all other illnesses or injuries.  Yeah, my colon looks like it has a pack-a-day habit, feels like it’s the permanent host of the Lilliputian Riot Brigade (the burning feeling, the broken glass sensation, the loud rumblings – what else could it be?), and performs like the broken, leaky, unreliable plumbing it is. 

But otherwise — you known, otherwise, aside from this pretty frickin' major way in which I'm not a healthy guy — my health is pretty sound, my body in good condition.  I sometimes think that I made a strange deal with devil.  Bluesmen sell their souls for soulful guitar licks and blistering, mesmerizing picking abilities.  I made an arguably more foolish deal: I sold my colon for an otherwise clean bill of health. 

Here ya go, Mr. Demon.  Have at the colon.  Fill it up with fire and brimstone and howling souls.  Use it to test your torture techniques for the damned.  Tear it to pieces.  Just as long as I never, ever get sick or hurt in any other way. 

So it is that I have never, for example, sprained or broken a limb.  When I was in elementary school, it was practically a rite of passage to break something – preferably in a spectacular manner involving the playground monkey bars, a bike, or, best of all, both – and to have all your friends sign pity you and sign your cast.  I climbed my share of trees, played all kinds of sports, and led a fairly active life, but I never managed to hurt myself like all of the cool kids. 

I did, in college, break my colon, but it turns out you don’t get a nifty cast for that.  It also turns out that people are pretty reluctant to sign a colostomy bag.  Guess I learned that lesson the hard way. 

I am always mildly gleeful in anticipation when the nurse at the doctor’s office goes down the checklist at the beginning of an appointment, as I wait for her to ask if I have any allergies to medicine.  It’s all I can do, even now, when I am supposedly a mature adult, to not burst out, “NO ALLERGIES!  NONE!  BOOYAH!” 

Bring on the bees!  Bring on the peanuts and the shellfish!  Bring on the dandruff-ridden dogs!  I am immune to all of your allergens!  Just try to make me go into anaphylactic shock! 

I have never had a cavity, a source of constant amazement to my dentist, who nonetheless always scolds me for not brushing and flossing enough.  I have never blacked out, passed out or broken out in hives, nor have I stepped on a nail or been bitten by a dog.  I get my flu shot every year, just in case, but I can’t even remember the last time I had the flu.  Sure, there’s a little cold now and then, a headache on occasion, and I have had both chicken pox and shingles. 

But for the most part, potential maladies and physical misfortune stay far, far, away, presumably fearful of competing with Crohn’s.  They dare not challenge me, for I have survived the Gastro Monster. 

I’m not sure whether to be reassured or frustrated, then, when I do get sick in some other way.  It’s nice, in a way, to know that I am a normal human being, and that those hazy memories of making a deal with a horned dude at a lonely rural crossroads are most likely contrived, not real, recollections.  On the other hand, of course, it seems vastly unfair that I should have to deal with Crohn’s, which I think gives me more than my recommended daily allowance of pain, agony, nausea, misery, frustration, etc., etc., and so on, ad infinitum . . . and have to deal with other those other nasty things that everyone else has to suffer through.  It really just ain’t fair. 

Tuesday, for example, I found out that I have asthma.  My friend thinks that would be a good band name, or maybe just a poem title: Asthma Since Tuesday.  Sure beats Ornery Gastrointestinal Tract Since Middle School.  Maybe that could just be the opening act. 

But on Tuesday, I found out I have asthma, and so since Tuesday, I have new pills to take and a new item to carry around in my pocket.  Said item is, of course, an inhaler, the little device you may remember from your own days in middle school, when there was, in every class, kid who sat in the corner during gym, wheezing, panting, and taking frequent hits from the breath-o-life mechanism.  These kids were excused from pretty much every activity aside from the rope climb, and I always felt sort of sorry for them – I happened to enjoy running around.  I considered it training for my frequent cross-country runs and short-distance sprints in search of the closest little boys’ room. 

I also empathized with the asthma-afflicted, as I considered my own illness to be a sort of asthma of the ass.  They had trouble with one end of the body, I had trouble with the other end.  When they lost control of things, they couldn’t get air in; when I lost control, I couldn’t keep things out.  But worst-case scenario, they died, while I just made a hell of a mess.    

Since Tuesday, I’ve had both options.  The good news is that for some reason, the asthma goes away when I’m otherwise short of breath.  I can go to the gym and pant my lungs out with nary a cough, not even the whisper of a wheeze.  More important, I can race across the room or down the block to get the commode, without worrying that, upon making it to the toilet, I will be unable to breathe.  My colon may collapse, but my lungs won’t.  Now that I think about it, though, violent coughing would provide a good cover for the even less appealing sounds I emit after making it to the toilet. . . . But overall, I guess it’s still probably better to have the symphony with just one instrument, not two.