Blow up

A bulge has appeared under my t-shirt on the left hand side. This means my colostomy bag has inflated. It gives me the appearance of having half a beer belly. When your bag blows up like this it feels like it could burst like a balloon at any moment, so it’s wise to let some air out as soon as possible. I make my way to some nearby public toilets. I’m in luck, one of the two cubicles is free. I duck inside and turn to lock the door. The lock is bust. Not a problem, I’ll just lean against the door to keep it shut, open my bag and let the air out. Normally a straightforward procedure, but on this occasion the gas is trapped behind the stool, forcing the poo out. Defying gravity the stool quickly rises up, filling the opening of the bag and preventing me from rolling it back up and sealing it. Great, now I have a shit Vesuvius on my hands. A generous tablespoon of crap lands with a splat on the tiles. I take this as my cue to leap towards the toilet before I cover the rest of the floor in excrement. The remaining contents of my bag drop down into the toilet bowl from a distance of about 3 feet making quite some splash. This is not going according to plan. Without my weight against it the door swings open. I kick out a leg behind me slamming it shut. The now flaccid bag brushes against my jeans leaving a dark smear of shit. I have one hand on the cistern in front of me, and a foot against the door behind me. I’m in a similar position to a ballet dancer warming up at the bar. With my free hand I grab a handful of toilet paper. I mop up the mess on my crotch before tackling the opening to the bag. There’s warm poo all over my fingers, which makes me involuntarily shudder. Five minutes ago I was enjoying the sunshine and now I’m balancing in a small cubicle surrounded by own faeces. I hear the bolt slide back on the cubicle next door. I take my chance and like one of those wooden characters you see on Swiss clocks I pirouette out of my cubicle and into the now vacant one in one seamless move. With the door safely locked I flop down on the toilet and catching my breath I take out my sandwich box containing my colostomy kit. Now I can start again. This time properly.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 6.2

One minute you’re in hospital hooked up to a morphine drip vowing that if you ever make it out alive you’re going to turn your back on the bright lights and open a bookshop in Berlin, then – whoosh – the pages of your diary flip over and all of a sudden you’re up to your eyes in work, jacked up on strong coffee. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means I’m pretty much back to normal. Normal apart from the thingy stuck to my tummy.

Wednesday 27th May:
6.40am Change bag
11.15am Change bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Comments:
Nope.

Don't call us, we'll call you

"Seriously, you are guaranteed an Oscar if you play a mental."

Kate Winslet, Extras

What about someone with a colostomy bag? Recently, in a moment of sheer unbridled egotism I got to thinking about who would play me in a film of my life. It’s a fascinating casting conundrum, because as much as ulcerative colitis isn’t funny, and having a colostomy bag isn’t funny, it feels to me like a role more suited to Woody Allen than Will Smith. Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford and Russell Crowe are all fine actors, but I think their talents are better put to use battling pirates, Orcs, aliens and Nazis than UC. Likewise I can’t see Brad Pitt blogging about his bowel movements or Leonardo DiCaprio counting out his prednisolone. Now, Philip Seymour Hoffman or William H Macy, that’s more like it. I can just picture a pale, disheveled Philip Seymour Hoffman, straining on the toilet with bloodstained underpants round his ankles, railing against God, NHS underfunding and anal enemas. And I can imagine William H Macy sheepishly returning to his desk after a noisy 15 minute shitathon the whole office has heard, then totally losing it and directing his steroidal rage at a colleague who suggests it might have been something he ate. I’m not sure you’d get the same level of pathos and intensity from Vin Diesel. Now for some reason, I can only imagine slightly weird, oddball actors playing the part of me. I really don’t know why this is, because Johnny Depp would be a more obvious choice. But what about you, put yourself on the imaginary casting couch, who would you get to play you?

And to help get you in the Hollywood mood, here’s a list of UC themed films:

Close Encounters of the Turd Kind
The Armitage Shanks Redemption
The UC Suspects
Forrest Dump
No Colon for Old Men
Poop Fiction
Fartacus
Brokecrack Mountain
Pred-ator
Assablanca

Sigh

Friday night.
Friday night in.
Friday night in on my Jack Jones.
On my Todd.
Friday night in.
On my own.
Nothing wrong with that.
Don’t have to go out.
Don’t have to see anyone.
Nearly quarter to eight.
I’ll wait ‘til nine before I put my pyjamas on.
Might wear a fresh pair.
Treat myself.
Bank Holiday and all that.
A fresh pair of jim-jams.
That’ll be nice.
Nearly quarter to eight on a Friday night.
Still light out.
Hope it gets dark soon.
Don’t want to be in my pyjamas when it’s still light.
Oh.
Now it is quarter to eight.
Just check I’ve got enough milk for the morning.
Weetabix for breakfast.
Yep, just enough milk.
Quarter to eight and I’m already thinking about tomorrow’s breakfast.
Nothing wrong with that.
Don’t have to go out.
Not everyone goes out Friday night.
Why is it so light?
Them windows need cleaning.
Vinegar and newspaper.
Might put the telly on in a bit.
Put my pyjamas on first, perhaps.
Not until nine.
I absolutely will not put my pyjamas on before nine.
Not on a Friday night.
Is it too early to pull the blinds down?
What will the neighbours think?
Pulling the blinds down on a Friday night.
And it’s not even eight.
They’ll think I’m odd.
They’ll think what’s he doing pulling his blinds down and it’s not even eight?
They’ll think I’m up to something.
They’ll think them windows need cleaning.
I can’t be cleaning my windows on a Friday night.
Not on a Friday night.
Best stay away from the windows.
No one needs to know I’m in on a Friday night.
If I keep still.
If I keep the lights off.
And don’t put the telly on.
They’ll think I’m out.
I don’t care if it’s still light out.
I’m putting my pyjamas on.
Better to be comfortable.
Now what time is Jonathan Ross on?
Ten thirty-five!
Sweet Mary Mother of Christ!
It’s only ten past eight.
On a Friday night.
On my Jack Jones.

Mittwochs Tagebucheintrag am Donnerstag 6.1

Mittwoch, 13. Mai:
6.50 Uhr Beutel gewechselt
14.00 Uhr Beutel gewechselt

Medikation:
morgens 6 x Mesalazine 400mg
abends 4 x Azathioprine 50mg
nachts 6 x Mesalazine 400mg

Bemerkungen:
Fühle mich ein bisschen deutsch heute, vielleicht liegts am Wetter?

Don't lump me in with elephants and donkeys

Yeah, true.

But some of us do it slightly differently.

The wrong room

An urgent knock at the door interrupts me from my task. I am naked from the waist up in the baby changing room at Spitalfields Market in London’s East End. Knock-knock-knock, there it goes again. I freeze and hold my breath. A man’s voice calls through the door, “Can you come out?” It sounds more like an order than a request. I’m midway through changing my bag. My colostomy kit is neatly laid out in front of me. In my right hand I hold a scrunched up wet-wipe over my stoma. Now is not a great time for me. “Come out, please,” demands the voice beyond the door. For some unknown reason I’m still holding my breath, like I’ve suddenly found myself in a game of hide and seek. Another round of brisk knocking rattles the door. “Hang on,” I cry out. The sound of my voice seems to have the same effect on the man outside as a twitching line has on a fisherman. The knocking becomes faster and more agitated, “Open. The. Door,” spits the man. By this time I’ve guessed he probably doesn’t need to urgently change a nappy and he’s most likely some sort of security guard. He must have spotted me on CCTV going into the baby changing room without a baby. This would have aroused his suspicions: man + baby changing room – baby = drug user/terrorist. Pushing aside his KFC bucket he would have sprung into action, hoping to catch me red-handed. And so with all the tenacity of a man who thinks he’s cornered Osama bin Laden, he continues knocking on the door. I decide to ignore him and make him wait. Taking my time I change my bag to the steady beat of his knuckles on the woodwork. Once I’m all tucked in and zipped up, I open the door and as I suspected, I come face to face with a security guard. He takes a step back, assessing the situation, ready for combat. I swear he thinks he’s Boba Fett. “That’s the baby changing room,” he says nodding at the sign on the door. “I know,” I reply. He lifts his head slightly and narrows his eyes, peering at me down his nose. I raise my eyebrows inquisitively, enjoying the game. “It’s for changing nappies,” he tells me with more menace than the words deserve, “You cannot go in there.” “The disabled toilet was locked,” I say. The security guard glances over his shoulder at the disabled toilet, and retaliates with, “You need to phone the number to get it opened.” “Right. I didn’t know.” We stand staring at each other in silence. Stalemate. Seconds pass. “Can I go now?” I ask. The guard nods at the baby changing room again, “Why’d you go in there?” Okay, Columbo, you asked. I lift up my shirt. This’ll show him. This’ll make him squirm. The security guard takes one look at my belly, and like he’s seen a million colostomy bags he simply shrugs, “You still can’t use that one. Next time use the disabled toilet and ring the number.” With that he gives me a parting look as if to say ‘you’ve been told’ and leaves me standing there like a plonker with my bag blowing in the breeze.