STEAMPUNK25

I can’t talk about the good and bad times of my life, without thinking about Crohn’s Disease. This disease can be uncomfortable surrounded with images of poop and farts. I was separated from my friends. No one can hold a candle to such anxiety of shitting myself. Maybe, I shit myself in public. I shit myself approximately 4 times a year. I almost shit myself daily. Not just daily but I need to know the nearest bathroom at every step of the way.

I have to predict the future of my next bowel movement and get to a bathroom at exactly the moment that can’t hold it anymore. I am tormented by Crohns. I have 2 feet less of my intestines than the healthy person. I do have scars. They are tattoos of a death I have escaped. Help me, I am drowning.

I am 40 now and I am closer to death and I need more hope in my life. I don’t want to die. I want to live for my beautiful daughter.

I have been contemplating what will my death look like?

Everyday, I inch closer to death. My thought process is clouded by stress of Crohn’s Disease. Driving is a waking nightmare. It will only be a matter of time that I accidentally run someone over. My options are, shit in my pants, or run a red light to make it to a bathroom. Will I make it to the bathroom? What will happen if I drive a little bit longer? Oh, when will this torture end?

The daily anxiety of being fecal incontinent, the premature death caused by body signals that don’t connect with the mind. Every ounce of anxiety weakens my frail body structure, biometric process that takes away brain and muscle strength, the cavity of my bio-infrastructure.

A fistula is an abnormal connection between the intestine and another structure. Fistulas are usually the result from infection or inflammation (accompanied with Crohn’s Disease). Help me, I am screaming.

Crohn’s disease, is a disease that leads to fistulas between one section of intestine and another. My fistula was a section of infected intestine, which caused the disease to create an infected track and exit through my belly button. Waste would pass through my belly button. Help me, my insides are out – are red with blood, battered, wet and sticky. I’m snotty, stinky, and shameful.

Crohn’s disease causes inflammation of the digestive system. It is one of a group of diseases called inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn’s can affect any area from the mouth to the anus. It often affects the lower part of the small intestine called the ileum.

The cause of Crohn’s disease is unknown. It may be due to an abnormal reaction by the body’s immune system. It also seems to run in some families. It most commonly starts between the ages of 13 and 30. You may not know this, but by the time you read this, I am probably dead.

Since my first fistula, the rules have changed. My health had become graver. Yet, I had a purpose. I wanted to prove fate and the dissenters that I am worthy. God gave me this condition for a reason. If I only understood, “Why?” There must be a reason. There is a design.

In the winter of 1998, my stomach (more precisely my intestines) suffered from the tear I was describing before, known as a fistula. I was told that I had to get surgery done as soon as possible. The next week I was operated on. Things I learned from this surgery are:

• The eye popping pain that comes after the surgery is hardcore. I challenge any doubter / nay sayer, to keep from going momentarily ape shit insane while in ICU.
• Surgery changes you, no matter how hard you prepare for it.

After the surgery, I was placed in the ICU. I woke up to an unbearable and insurmountable amount of pain, I was reeling and couldn’t open my eyes, the pain kept them shut. My nerves were alive and as electrified as any OPERATION toy game set. This was the first time I saw death. All I could hear was the nurse trying to calm me down, “Oliver, calm down,” over and over. I thought I would bleed out through my heart. I heard my name over and over, getting more distant – begging me to calm down.

The surgery I had was called a resection. A resection is the connection of two healthy parts of the intestine after the removal of the diseased portion.

Then the strangest thing happened. I heard a different voice call my name, this made me stop crying. I waited to hear it again. I wanted to hear that beautiful melody again. I heard my name through the whisper of the heavens. The wind lightly played with my hair. I was at full attention.

In disbelief, I looked over and saw my best friend’s cousin on a gurney next to me. “Ted?” I said in a heavily medicated slur.

He replied, “Oliver?”

I asked him breathily, “What are you doing here?”

He replied, “I got into a fight and broke my nose.”

“Oh,” I said, as if each breath were my last.

And that was that. Ted got his wings. Death flew away. It is funny how sometimes, if you listen to the wind, the delicate breeze can enter and purify you faster than any cure. I watched my angel, wheeled away into the hospital abyss.

I spent 10 days of my life, in that hospital. I was 23. I was denied water and my belly wasn’t ready for food. I had an IV and Morphine drip. The hospital was the local mediocre, quasi- “state of the art” one.

I was released from the hospital after my first surgery in January 1998. By March of the same year, it reoccurred. It returned, but this time, it brought about embarrassing flatulence, and excrement exiting through my belly button.

This second fistula was a weakly patched up nightmare – with surgical tape and gauze and I didn’t have a chance. It was akin to plugging a dam with your finger except when one hole is plugged, then another leak is sprout. Whatever I fed my body, came out through my navel. Sometimes, the food was dark from digestion, other times, I passed loose bile, other times the food wasn’t digested at all.

If this wasn’t traumatic enough, there were times when the waste didn’t pass through the exit of my fistula opening, but was left half in my body and half out. I can only describe this experience as a nerve without the pain of the nerve ending. I could literally feel my food exiting with the subtle pressure of life squeezed from my insides. There were times when I felt like I was taking my final breath through my belly button.

My belly passed gas and waste without any control.

I waited 2 ½ years after the first one, to go through the surgery again. I felt life was out of control, yet I felt empowered.  I have been touched by God once. I was always aware of my cognitive self and my unconscious self. At this point, I meditate and speak to God through my unconscious. A cool breeze blows.

My Crohn’s Disease, the soul of who I am, tried to kill me twice (so far), psychologically, socially, and physically. I can’t cry about it because I can’t wish it away. I felt isolated from my friends, my needs.

I had survived a 80% mortality rate. I accepted it. However the God gamble, antied up to the worst possible diagnosis – my current diagnosis is “fistulating” Crohn’s. In other words I will never be healthy.

A cavity (fistula) excutaniouosly (on the outside) through my belly button can’t be understood.  I could literally see insides by looking at my belly button. I have pulled food undigested through this cavity. I had flatulence that I couldn’t hide. When I would have school classes and on a particular day is a quiz; my fistula would not have mercy.

So I resorted to the fantasy world of porn. I related to the craziness: Ridiculousness. Rejection. Loneliness. Religiosity. Almost all of my imaginations, as untrue as it was, were about objectifying women.

I, too, am dealing with physical and emotional obstacles. Crohn’s Disease, coupled with generalized psychological disorder, and occasionally losing mobility and feeling in my arms and legs, (which the doctors tell me it’s all in my mind), makes me stronger.

I’ve had two surgeries, leaving me with 5 inches less intestines than I was born with. I am a Bad Mother Fucker. Let me repeat. I’ve had two surgeries before my 23^rd birthday, leaving me with 5 inches of intestions less than I was born with. I am a Bad Mother Fucker.