The OCD Diaries

June 15, 2011

Fear and Duct Tape

I was an anxious, jumpy, panicky little bastard when I was younger. Fear made me do the damnedest things. My sister Stacey loves to repeat the story of one of my more embarrassing moments. It used to piss me off. Now I can sit back and laugh with everyone else.

So fuck it. Let’s review the morning a hurricane was coming and I went bat-shit crazy.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:6KfzBFMXEOs7LgBcG4ZxyT]

First, some history. I’ve explained this before, so no need to stick around if you’ve heard it:

Before I got my OCD under control, I was always full of fear and anxiety. It robbed me of a life that could have been better lived. I hid indoors a lot. I favored the fantasy land of TV over the real, scary world. And when the weather got hairy, I over-reacted in ways that are more amusing in hindsight.

I blame the Blizzard of 1978 for that. When you watch the Atlantic Ocean rip apart a beach wall like it’s melted ice cream and head straight for your house, bad things go through your mind when you’re 8 years old. In later years, when comparisons of that blizzard go hand in hand with every new storm warning, the fear flames over everything else in life until your sanity is reduced to a pile of ashes.

So there we were, in August 1991. The news was already full of reports about a military coup in Russia, which was scary because that meant the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev. He would be back in power before the week was out, but take the early hours of that crisis and mix it with reports that a hurricane called Bob is coming straight at us, and here’s what you get:

Me running around the house with duct tape, slathering reams of it on every window I could find.

I ran into Stacey’s basement bedroom and proceeded to tape her window. One of her friends was sleeping over, and got to see me in all my crazy glory.

“Get up, a hurricane is coming!” I bellowed. Stacey and her friend remained in the bed, not a care in the world.

“Come on, you idiots!” I yelled. “This aint no fucking Hurricane Gloria.”

Hurricane Gloria was a storm that hit Massachusetts in 1985. It was supposed to be a devastating event, but it passed over us with more of a whimper than a bang. Hurricane Bob was going to be much worse, the weather people were telling us.

They started comparing the expected storm surge with that of the Blizzard of 1978. Panic.

That storm turned out to be almost as anti-climactic as Gloria.

That Halloween, a much more devastating storm hit, and flooded out the neighborhood almost as badly as in 1978. Ours was one of the only houses not to get flooded.

Go figure.

June 15, 2011

Cooking With Dad

It was one of those rare occasions where all the Brenner siblings were in one room. We were at the hospital awaiting word on some emergency surgery my father was having. We started trading stories about some of Dad’s antics, especially his eating habits.

Mood music:

I’ve mentioned before how I inherited my binge eating addiction from family, and how a lot of it came from my father. I’ve also given examples of my own binges. Last night’s conversation was about some of Dad’s more colorful efforts to down massive quantities of junk.

The discussion started with my younger brother, Brian. He’s the professional chef in the family, and I’m always awed by his ability to not only explain how to cook something, but also how to tell you the history of certain dishes and how you harvest various things, like bananas. Shira, the youngest, started that line of talk because she’s done that one. She has traveled extensively, and has done all kinds of weird but awesome things.

From there, Brian said he had a lot of great memories of Dad and food. There was the freezer full of Hostess Snowballs (the pink ones), the frozen blueberry blintzes, the bags of chocolate-covered raisins. Stacey remembered the boxes of frozen pizza and I remembered the massive trays of stuffed cabbage, which my father could down in one sitting.

Brian never cared for the stuffed cabbage. Shira said it was good with ketchup. Brian then told us about the history of ketchup.

I often lament about how I inherited the eating problems from my parents. But the insidious behaviors have their amusing side. Last night was a time to celebrate that part.

The good news: The longer we discussed Dad’s eating habits, the more grossed out I became. My food program is pretty strict today. It has to be that way for my survival. No flour. No sugar. Everything I eat goes on the scale for portion control. And I control it with a 12-Step program, just like a drunk does AA.

When discussing Dad’s eating habits makes me feel sick instead of wanting to go binge, that’s progress.

Dad will never control his eating that way. He’s not the type. That’s partly why he’s in the dire straights he’s in.

But I’m not going to cuss about that. He’s a great guy, and last night we celebrated that.

June 14, 2011

A Recovery Under Pressure

The coming days and weeks are going to put my recovery program to the test like nothing I’ve experienced since getting the OCD under control and bringing my binge-eating addiction to heel.

That’s not a complaint, or a cry for sympathy. It’s simply the way it is. It’s life. By being honest with myself about what’s coming, I stand a better chance of holding it together.

Yesterday I visited my father, who’s been in the hospital since having a stroke two weeks ago. As is the case with stroke patients, recovery is a long road with a lot of ups and downs.

This past weekend he sounded more lucid than he had in a long time. That was an up. The ups fill you with a lot more hope than you should have when the best thing to do is take things one day at a time. Such hope makes it all the more devastating when a down day comes.

Yesterday was a down day.

He was seeing and talking about things that weren’t there. He kept telling us he wanted to go to the Beth Israel where he needed to be, not really buying the reality that he was already there.

He kept reaching out to us to hand us his keys. Of course, he had no keys.

He kept telling me to take a folder from his hand and put it on the table next to him. I pretended to take the folder that wasn’t really there. Then I was pissed with myself for playing along. But when I’d tell him the truth — that the things he saw weren’t really there, he grew agitated. The IV bags full of various liquids above him became hazardous chemicals in his mind, and he started pulling at the chords.

In that scenario, the only thing you can feel is helpless.

Physically he seems OK. The blood pressure is up and down, but his breathing and heart rate appear good. For him, the big crisis is in the brain.

I’m used to mental illness. I have a lot of personal experience there. But this is different. This is something that was sparked by a stroke, whereas my issues were the much more gradual result of disjointed brain chemistry and rough experiences growing up.

That’s my territory, and from that perspective I can give a person advice until hell freezes over. But the thing with my father is out of my league.

When something is out of my league, I feel out of control. When you have OCD, control is something you desperately crave, especially when the going gets tough.

I’m not feeling the urge to give in to my addictions, which is usually what this state of mind leads to.

But I know it’s coming.

That’s the test in front of me.

Now that I’ve acknowledged it, I feel more ready to keep it all together.

I have my tools: An OA sponsor, a network of friends and family, a food plan that’ll keep me out of trouble as long as I cling tight to it, and my faith. Whatever happens, Jesus has my back.

I just have to remember that.

I also have to remember that, as Mister Roger’s mother once told him, in times of trauma always look for the helpers, because they are always there.

At the same time, I need to be one of the helpers, because others will need that from me.

I’m still trying to figure out the best way to be a helper.

I figure God will lead me in the right direction.

June 13, 2011

When Things Don’t Go As Planned…

Saturday, things did not go as planned. It was the day of Sean’s Scout camp out, and the forecast was for fair skies a few days before. Naturally, it poured the whole time. But it was a lesson in making the best of a bad situation.

Mood music:

We had a great day despite the torrents of water falling down on us. Kids love getting wet and muddy — for a little while, at least. The scout leader cooked up a storm under the big tent using nothing but cast-iron pots and charcoal heated in the camp fire. That I considered it a good day shows just how much I’ve changed in recent years.

When all your awesome plans get washed out, it can be frustrating when your brain works the way it’s supposed to. But when the traffic in your skull doesn’t flow properly — which is usually the case when you have OCD — a day that suddenly changes shape will spark a serious case of crazy.

In my case, that means high anxiety, followed by multiple temper tantrums, followed by addictive behavior — binge eating in my case — and then a migraine with the urge to throw up. Not necessarily in that order, but usually in that order.

A flight gets delayed or canceled? Bad reaction. Car breaks down? Bad reaction. A carefully constructed schedule ripped apart by shifting winds? Catasrophic reaction.

But I’ve put a lot of effort into controlling the OCD behavior and changing my overall outlook on life.

Saturday I benefited from that. Instead of focusing on the bad things (the rain and mud, the cold) I was able to focus on the good stuff (watching the kids have a good time, sitting in my over-sized lounge chair under the big tent, drinking coffee and writing down a ton of ideas for future blog posts.

Despite the deluge we were able to keep the fire burning all day, and that fire was much appreciated for those of us who don’t like to be cold.

The gray and wet also couldn’t take away the spectacular view where we were, atop Seven Sisters Road in Haverhill, one of the highest elevations in the city. You could see the Merrimack River for miles around.

A few years ago, this kind of day would have sent my OCD into overdrive. I would have felt like a caged animal. The laughter from the kids would have sounded like gunshots, and I would have cowered from the rain as if it were falling lava laced with every deadly disease on Earth.

I would have panicked at the sight of any mosquitoes and, in the bigger picture, I would have sat there feeling every bit like a victim. In this case, a victim of nature.

Like I said, the fact that I could instead enjoy a day like that — even taking inspiration from it — was almost freaky.

Because of the ongoing rain, the Scout leaders decided to send Sean’s group home at 8 p.m. They know how kids get when they wake up drenched the next morning, and didn’t want their first big camp out to be a souring experience. I was a bit bummed out by this, and found myself surprised by that for all the reasons I mentioned above.

So we went home to our warm beds.

The next day, we paid for our day of fun. I opened my eyes Sunday morning to a headache that stuck with me for much of the day, and I was full of crankiness and snark.

I just wanted to stay under the covers, but life doesn’t work that way when you’re a responsible grown up.

It took me a long time to peel myself off the living room chair, and I was rude to pretty much everyone in church.

But as the day progressed, my mood improved. It always does.

It was good to be able to have a better attitude when things didn’t break my way. But next time, I’ll want my sunshine back.

June 10, 2011

The Best Laugh I’ve Had All Week

My office colleague John Gallant sent me a video that made the coffee shoot from my nose. “Vegan Death Metal Chef.” It’s good; even better than the Muppets performing Slayer songs.

Given the ups and downs of the last two weeks, I needed a good laugh, so thanks, John.

Here it is. All music and video is made by the Vegan Black Metal Chef (Brian Manowitz). Enjoy:

June 10, 2011

The ‘Woe Is Me’ Disease

Funny thing about us OCD-addict types: When the going gets tough, we blame it on someone else. Call it the Woe Is Me Disease, where the sufferer is an eternal victim, forever screwed by everyone but his or her self.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/-q-MorIES5I

It used to be that it was impossible for me to see the problems as my own. It was always the result of something someone else did to me or failed to do for me. Eventually my disease settled into a pattern where I blamed myself for everything, to the point where I just kept beating myself instead of doing what was necessary to move on with life.

My Mom, who passed many of her OCD tendencies on to me, is a textbook example of victim-based OCD. This isn’t meant as an insult or criticism. It’s simply the way the problem manifests itself in her.

She lacks the ability to see things she doesn’t like as the simple way of life. Nothing is ever her fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. She is the perfect victim. In her own mind, anyway.

Seeing yourself as a victim every time the going gets tough is probably one of the worst things you can do. It holds you back, keeps you from improving yourself and makes you look pathetic in the eyes of people who don’t understand where the emotion comes from.

I’m reminded of this after getting a message the other day from an old friend who has been fighting his own battle with OCD. I won’t tell you who he is, but I’ll share what he wrote to me, because he is choosing to do something about his problem:

I recently finished my PHP for my OCD. It was a great program and glad my wife recommended that I enroll. So many things helped me change my way of thinking. One of the most important things I learned was to find ways to be proactive and a problem solver (where before I would be reactive and put my head in the sand).

Additionally, I realized that I suffer from “victim” type of thinking (such as this is not fair, I can’t handle this, etc…) and I need to think more like a “survivor” (I can handle this). I could go on and on about what I learned. I still plan on writing a “guest” column about my experience. I haven’t had much time to put my thoughts down on paper and it’s really important to me to do justice to describing my PHP experience.

I have a huge folder of handouts that I need to organize. I do know that just because I went through the program doesn’t mean I’m miraculously cured. From here I on out, I have many “tools” in my toolbox to handle whatever life throws at me.

I’m looking forward to that guest column.

He’s also right that people like us are never miraculously cured. We simply gather up a series of coping tools and pull them out when we need the help.

As a result, we stop being victims and become, as he put it, survivors.

June 9, 2011

Marital Differences in Style

I interrupt the usual theme of this blog for a little discussion on writing style and technique. To make things more interesting, my wife, Erin, is coming along for the ride.

Mood music (“You Know You’re ~~Right~~ Write” by Nirvana):

http://youtu.be/QhpdR-vgKVs

It’s appropriate that we do this now, because it’s been a year since I wrote about why writing is so important to my sanity and survival.

Now, Erin and I have our differences like every couple. One is about writing and editing. We’ve decided to do what any good couple should do to iron out differences. We’re going to talk it out. Or, in this case, write it out.

Call it a marital point-counterpoint.

We’ll do this in two parts — or four actually, since we’re each doing two posts apiece. Her take on writing and editing appears today in her blog, “The Writing Resource.” Follow the link I just gave you to see what she has to say, then read the rest of mine. Or vice versa.

The technician and the bull in a writing shop

We have enormous respect for each others’ writing and editing abilities. But on certain matters, we just don’t see eye to eye.

Example:

I’m looking over the draft of the blog post Erin has written for this project. I like what I see, except for one thing, which I share:

“My blog title is in all caps: THE OCD DIARIES,” I tell her in the calmest tone I can muster.

“You can’t be serious,” she responds in the tone she uses whenever I’ve done something stupid.

“Of course I’m serious, and you have to follow the style of the publication,” I tell her.

“I don’t think so,” she says. “I go by The Chicago Manual of Style.” Then, she sneers, “All caps. That’s so pretentious.”

I bristle. Not because she just called me pretentious, but because she’s throwing her style book around.

That’s probably the first difference: She’s deadly serious about following whatever style guide a particular project calls for. I toss the style books to the ground and stomp on them in self-righteous fury. I put dashes and hyphens wherever the hell I want them. I love the occasional all caps statement. I’m as loud in style as I am in the mood music I put at the top of almost every post.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking by now: She’s the sensible one, the type of sensible editor the world needs to tame bull-in-a-china-shop writers like me.

Here’s a surprise for you: I agree.

I may have a looser, more rebellious style of writing, but Erin and I agree on the fundamentals. Let’s go deeper. The stuff in italics is what I blatantly ripped from Erin’s post. It’s her thoughts, followed by my responses.

1. Bam! You get an idea.

You’re a writer, and your job is to communicate something to your readers. Maybe you get an assignment, maybe you have a story you just have to tell. Either way, you have to have an idea. It swirls around your brain, demanding to be let out.

I approach this part differently between this blog and the writing I do in my day job for CSOonline.com. For the work stuff, my company has a special style guide we’re required to follow. It’s in the personal blog where I choose to throw style to the wind.

But the brainstorming process is about the same. I might be in the shower or driving to the office. An idea comes to me and I start to get revved up. I can’t contain myself and need to get to the computer. or, as Erin notes in her post, I’ll write ideas down on whatever is available (the inside of a package of cold medicine, in the case she mentions).

2. Brainstorm your idea.

So you have this idea. What are you going to do about it? That’s the next step: brainstorming, prewriting, gathering, call it what you will, it’s all about putting everything you know about your idea onto paper.

What do you have to say about your idea? Who will you say it to? What else do you need to know to say what you want? You’re starting to plan what you want to say and who you want to say it to. Check out Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab for more questions to help you define your audience and the scope of your idea.

For work, I know who my audience is: The information security professional, from the top-level execs to the hackers working away in their basements.

For THE OCD DIARIES, my audience doesn’t fit any one demographic. The common cause of my readers is that they, like me, live a life full of struggles, and they come to see what my take is on those struggles.

In the latter case, I don’t dwell on who I’m writing for. I guess that’s because I’m writing for myself in the end. People will relate, but the posts deal with all the things I’m experiencing and feeling.

I don’t have time to ponder who the audience will be. Priority one is to get what I’m feeling onto the page.

3. Research and develop your idea.

At this point you should have a fair idea of what you want to write about, what you know about it, and who your audience is. Now it’s time to build on your knowledge. What else do you need to know to grow that iceberg toward the surface?

For example, for this post I knew the steps I use for writing, but I wanted to know how other writers approached the process. I looked to other writers who write or talk about writing. I took lots of notes about the writing process as understood by others. Most of what I learned is still in my notes, building on the base of the iceberg I’m creating. Some of it will end up above the water, where you can see it shimmer in the sunlight, such as this thought from columnist John Clayton: “It’s better to over-research and write from abundance. Then you can leave out the less-interesting stuff.”

Even if everything you research doesn’t end up in the final product, what you learn will affect what you have to say.

I pretty much agree with this, especially that last point. You can’t write about something with any credibility if you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

When I write about information security, I do constant research and interview many, many security professionals.

But when I blog for CSOonline, the style calls for more attitude and opinion based on personal experience in covering the topic.

In that case, I just fire away. I tell people what I think about a particular security matter based on several years of covering the news and talking to the people in the trenches. In this blog, the research is my life’s experience with OCD, addictions and all the drama that goes with it. I do some research along the way, and present much of what I find verbatim, naming the source and linking to it.

The rest of the time, I make it clear to people that I’m not a doctor. I’m just sharing personal experiences that are sure to be quite different from the next person’s experiences.

I call this the fire-away model.

Next week: Erin and I trade views on doing outlines, writings drafts, and doing rewrites.

June 8, 2011

Hospital Phobia

During visits to my father in the hospital, I find myself jittery and all-around uncomfortable. It’s not the sight of my father, who is starting the long road to recovery after a stroke. Sure, he’s looked better. But you could say that of anyone stuck in a hospital bed.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/C6LCttYOO9Q

The discomfort, I’m starting to realize, has to do with the hospital itself.

He’s at one of the best hospitals in Boston, and the staff I’ve talked to are friendly and compassionate. He’s definitely in good hands.

But the sights and smells get to me. The machinery and the sounds they make unsettle me. I had forgotten these things.

It’s a phobia of sorts, the kind that always kept me from visiting my grandparents whenever they were in the hospital, which was a lot. I regret not visiting them as much as I should have, but there’s something about walking into those places that makes you take a hard stare at your own mortality.

I find it odd that I would have this problem, considering I was a frequent resident of Children’s Hospital as a kid.

I figure that should have desensitized me a long time ago. Yet here I am, confronting this reality.

I noticed my father had a swollen hand when I walked in his room. The sight would freak some people out, but I immediately knew what it was: The swelling you get when an IV needle has been in your vein for too long. It used to happen to me all the time. Could it be that it’s not really a phobia, but something even more unsettling — the discomfort of looking at the machines, beds and gray-beige walls and floors and feeling, in an odd sort of way, like I’m home?

Most of us feel the periodic pull of our old neighborhoods. We like to visit the places where we grew up. Even if we had a bad childhood, we feel the need to revisit the scene of the crime. I often do, and can never fully explain why. Maybe I should go visit my old floor at Children’s Hospital. Maybe it’ll break the spell.

Yeah, probably not.

Whatever is behind the uneasiness, I’m not staying away this time.

For one thing, I can’t let something so stupid keep me from doing the right thing.

Also, it’s what a good son should do.

June 7, 2011

A Letter to Addie, a Child Fighting OCD

This is an open letter to a girl named Addie. She is fighting OCD and the anxiety that goes with it, and her mom has been blogging about it. I suggest you read her blog. Meantime, I want to share some experiences with Addie…

Mood music:

Hi, Addie,

My name’s Bill, and I know a thing or two about what you are going through. It’s gonna be rough at times, but let me tell you why everything will be fine — better than fine.

Anxiety is a nasty thing to live with. I spent the better part of my 20s and early 30s hunkered down in my house because of it. I saw guys looking for a fight around every corner.

Whenever I had to get on a plane, I’d have visions of the plane going down in flames. If I had to make a stand or take a test in school or turn in a big project at work, my mind would spin violently with every negative thought one could have. I would fear for the worst, but never hold out hope for the best.

I worked myself into a stupor over the safety of my wife and children. I had an obsession with cleanliness, which was interesting since depression always meant my personal hygiene took a dive. I was terrified of world events.

Yet I got through each one of those moments.

One day I woke up and realized the fear and anxiety had to go. It took a long time, but through good therapy, medication and a deepening faith in God, those things did go away.

The first thing to remember is that you have a mom and dad who love you and will do anything for you. They will be your biggest allies. There will be others who will help you through it. Many, many others. Their support is much, much bigger than the things your anxiety has made you fear.

When my children were younger, they watched a show called “Veggie Tales.” One episode focused on a boy afraid of the boogie man. He learned a song called “God is Bigger Than the Boogie Man” and that made his fear much smaller. In time, it went away. God is bigger than anxiety, too. The fears you get from the anxiety are over things that aren’t real. The only thing that is real is the here and now, and what you do with it.

You ever watch Mister Roger’s Neighborhood on PBS? After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he did a wonderful show about getting through bad times. He said:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers–so many caring people in this world.

Mr. Rogers learned a powerful lesson from his mother. I wish I had it in my head to focus on the helpers growing up. In hindsight, they were always there:

–The doctors and nurses who saved me from brutal bouts of Crohn’s Disease.

–The therapists who guided me through a diagnosis of OCD and showed me how to manage it.

–My family, especially my wife, and also my father and even my mother. My relations with the latter are in mothballs right now, but I think she tried to do her best for me. The help Erin has been to me is way too big to be measured here.

–My friends, who have always helped me make sense of things, made me laugh and done all the other things a person needs to get through the day.

–Many of the people in my faith community, who showed me how to accept God’s Grace, even if I still suck at returning the favor.

So that’s one of the big lessons: Always look for the helpers. You will always find them.

The other piece of advice is to never, ever let yourself believe that you can’t live life to the fullest because you have OCD.

Have you ever heard of Winston Churchill? He was Prime Minister of Britain during the darkest days of World War II. He often suffered from depression — he called it his Black Dog — and yet he led his country to victory over evil. He had a saying that I think of every day when the going gets tough: “Some people see a calamity in every opportunity. Others see an opportunity in every calamity.”

Do you like music? I find that music — rock and roll, specifically — soothes my soul in times of difficulty and gives me the strength to press on. There’s a band called Def Leppard that has an inspiring story of success despite bad things that could have stopped them cold. The drummer, Rick Allen, had an arm ripped off in a car wreck. A lot of people thought his career was over. Twenty-six years later, he’s still drumming. The example applies to people like us. OCD can only defeat us if we let it.

I’m not about to let that happen. I’ll bet you feel the same way.

I have a final and important piece of advice for you:

Even if you get rid of your anxiety — and I know you will — you will still have plenty of OCD moments. I still check my laptop bag several times to make sure I didn’t forget my computer. I still go on a cleaning tear through my house if too many things are out of order.

That’s perfectly OK. As long as you learn to beat down the part where your mind spins with worry about things beyond your control, the other habits are fine. Since I’m open about my OCD, people don’t look at me funny when I have those “OCD moments.” They’ve learned to see beyond the habits and see me for who I am.

And sometimes, the OCD moment can be put to good use. If you have a big project, the OCD can push you to get it done and done right. It may seem strange, but if you learn to manage it, it can be very useful.

Some of our repetitive motions do look silly at times. Don’t worry about it. Learn to laugh at it instead.

Life is tough. But it’s supposed to be. It’s how we discover who we are and what we are capable of. I bet you are capable of a lot.

Take care of yourself, and keep the faith.

Yours truly,

Bill Brenner

June 6, 2011

A Boy’s Life on Prednisone: A Class Photo History

I’ve mentioned before that I had to take a lot of this nasty drug called Prednisone as a kid, and how the side effects were almost as bad as the Crohn’s Disease flare-ups the drug was meant to snuff out.

Well, my old elementary school friend Myles Lynch posted some class pics on Facebook that show the physical impact. Looking at them brings back memories good and bad.

Let’s start with first grade, before the disease surfaced. I’m dead-center in the back row, looking like a normal kid:

By the time the second-grade class photo is taken, I’ve been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and I’ve spent six weeks in the hospital. The results of the Prednisone on my face are pretty clear. I’m second from left in the back row:

By the time the third-grade pic is taken, I’ve been through my second flare-up and six-week hospital stay. I’m in the back row, two kids to the right of the teacher, Ms. Cole:

I’m not in the fourth-grade class picture, because as the photo is being taken, I’m in the middle of a third six-week hospital stay for another flare-up. The disease usually struck sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving. This time, it waited until spring.

By sixth grade I’ve been off Prednisone for a while. You can see it in my face, front row, far left:

The other kids in these pictures have had their own challenges and joys in life. I’ve kept in touch with some of them. But here’s the important thing: Back then, when we were a small, close-knit community, before the puberty-driven bullying of middle school, these kids did all they could to make me feel better. When I was in the hospital they would send hand-made get-well cards. When I’d get out of the hospital, they would give me a warm, cheerful welcome back.

Those acts of kindness are something I will never forget.

The pictures also remind me a lot of what life was like in the hospital. Those hospital wards were like little communities, where the young patients would try to find ways to pass the time. We shared each other’s toys and watched the same TV shows. I always seemed to be the only Crohn’s patient on a floor full of kids with Cystic Fibrosis. Treatment for that disease was nothing like it is today, and many of the friends I made in the hospital died before they got to adulthood.

I lost a lot of blood back then, because I had a colon full of holes. But compared to my lost friends, I got off lucky.

I owe that to God and all the helpers he put in my path.

Whenever I’m having a bad day and I start to get cranky and impatient with people, I try to think back to those days. Doing so makes me remember how blessed I am, and how I should stop wasting time on hard feelings and earn that blessing by spending my life as one of those helpers.

I’ve been walking past Children’s Hospital these days on the way into the neighboring hospital my father has been in since suffering a stroke last week, and the memories come flooding back of the time when I was a frequent resident there. And seeing my father, with his eye patch and slackened mouth, makes me remember the things he used to do to keep me going.

During one stay, I was obsessed with getting a talking View-Master, where you put in these paper disks and look through a view lens at the scenes that blow up larger than life on a screen inside the gadget. The taking variety was all the rage in 1979, and I bellowed about it like the spoiled brat I was. You get very spoiled and miserable to be around when everyone is tending to your every need.

My father got me the talking View-Master, and bought me a new Star Wars action figure each week, followed by a trip to Friendly’s for ice cream on those occasions where I was allowed to have it.

The more emotional variety of affection was something he always struggled with, though in his way, he was doing all he could to show his love.

Amazing, the things that come back to you after looking at a few childhood pictures.