Wednesday 24 July 2013

A difficult afternoon...

* Take care graphic descriptions

Mr G and I took ourselves off the a city today, to have a nice lunch and do a bit of shopping.
Lunch was delicious in the form of Eggs Florentine with a side of bacon, accompanied by a Pear and Mango smoothie. I was really hungry but greed over took a degree of sense and I ate too much. When I was well this would not have been too bad, a couple of indigestion tablets and all would have been well. My illness has put paid to such intemperate behaviour. The cancer makes my inside plumbing stiff and inflexible which causes problems getting food in and the waste out.

Before long I knew I would have to be sick - the loos in the city are far apart, but good old Mr G remembered a Radar key disabled toilet nearby. I fell through the door in gratitude and lost most of my lunch down the toilet! Once I had composed myself, we resumed our shopping

Mr G wanted to buy some trainers but the outdoor activity shop was not designed with wheelchairs in mind, so Mr G parked me up in a shady spot to watch the world go by. I was in a bit of a daydream when a kindly female face from the Indian Sub Continent handed me £2. I raised my hand in polite refusal, no, I was not begging here in that corner of the city. She looked aghast, not begging it seemed to her, if one was in a wheelchair, was as unthinkable as I felt it was to beg.

Once the surprise of that kind gesture had properly woken me up, and Mr G had retrieved me and heard my tale, it was obvious my body needed to get rid of some waste from the other end. This sometimes manifests itself as the 'go from constipation to diarrhoea in 10 seconds' rule.  This is, as you can imagine, fraught with danger.

Mr G immediately grasped the issue and set off at a pace, all through the shopping centre, up the lift to go past the bus station and down into the bowels of the car park and the blessed relief of the loos.
To cap my dreadful afternoon off, my blooming drains decided to have performance anxiety ... twenty minutes later I was eventually comfortable once more. The sheer terror of soiling myself, had, once again shown me the tyranny with which cancer rules my body.

What I have learned today:

Ask for a SMALL portion.

To be gracious even when rocked to your core.

Grown ups might feel safer carrying a changing bag!