The OCD Diaries

August 30, 2013

The Beauty of a Broken Body

At the breakfast table yesterday, Sean said, “Dad has many good qualities. None have anything to do with his body.”

I had good laugh over that and was amused enough to share it on Twitter and Facebook. Which brought this thoughtful response from a friend: “Little does he know what you’ve been through with your body. When he realizes, he’ll know that that’s your best quality!”

Mood music:

Sean knows, of course. He’s seen for himself what a crippled back did to me before I got that fixed, and he’s heard all about the Crohn’s Disease I had as a kid. He has seen the pictures of me bloated on Prednisone and the fourth-grade report card with 43 absences on it, 26 of them during the final semester that year. Whether he truly comprehends it all is another thing.

His witticism, though, was meant to get a reaction. Nothing more, nothing less. He knows I enjoy a good zinger, especially from him and his brother.

But there is a bigger lesson for the kids: bodies fall apart for different reasons and in the majority of cases, it need not prevent a person from living life to the full.

I have friends who test and break their limits with weight lifting, martial arts and the like. I admire them immensely but will never duplicate their achievements because I still have a spine that limits movement. I’ll also never be as thin or muscular as they are, for the same reason. The childhood intake of Prednisone, meanwhile, left me with permanently bad vision and more body hair than I’d like.

Despite my body’s imperfections, I still push myself in a variety of ways. I cut flour and sugar from my diet years ago. I’m a regular walker and always have been. I push myself hard on the career front and have been rewarded many times over. I’ve pushed myself to the outer limits in unraveling my mental disorders and getting them treated.

My body may not be what most consider attractive, but I’m proud of it. Because despite all the blows over the years, it keeps on working.

Does that excuse me from striving to be in better shape? Of course not. There’s still plenty I can do to control weight and muscle mass, and there are no good excuses for avoiding that work.

My bodybuilding friends overcame plenty of their own physical limitations to get to where they are. I admire them for that. They remind me of the older brother I lost in 1984. He didn’t get to live a long life, but despite the asthma that eventually killed him, he lifted weights religiously and was full of muscle. It was his way of not taking an ailment lying down.

I learned a lot from that, and I think Sean and Duncan are learning a lot from my broken-body adventures today.

Strong man with unhealthy body

June 13, 2013

Superman Was There When I Needed Him Most

Tonight I’m doing something I never do. I’m going to a midnight movie premier, for Man of Steel. I’m no night owl, so this ought to be an adventure. But Superman has always been important to me.

It seems ridiculous, having such devotion to a fictional superhero. But to be honest, the Man of Steel came into my life at a time when I really needed a superhero, even if he was from a world of make-believe.

It started in 1978, the first time I was hospitalized with a mystery disease that robbed me of a lot of blood and strength. Back then, Crohn’s Disease was still a rare thing, and the doctors were feeling their way around in the dark when it came to treatment. I spent six weeks in a hospital bed, and the TV was my only solace. That’s when I discovered the Superman series from the 1950s. I got lost in the images of the man in red, white and yellow, outrunning trains and speeding bullets.

When I got out of the hospital that December, Superman: The Movie had just come out, and we went to see it. I was hooked. I identified with the hero’s feelings of being a misfit, trying to fit in somewhere. I’ve since watched that movie thousands of times.

Right after my third six-week hospital stay, Superman II came out. I saw it opening day. I saw all the Superman films that followed. Some were pretty terrible, but I didn’t care. By then, I was hooked.

We’re often taught that it’s silly to spend too much time buried in fantasy. But if the fantasy gets you through difficult times, I say so be it.

This new movie is supposed to be a radical departure from the Superman stories we’ve grown familiar with. It’s supposed to be darker, edgier. Sounds like a fun couple of hours to me.

The Man of Steel has always been there in my time of need. Seeing his latest movie at midnight is the least I could do to return the favor.

Man of Steel Movie Poster

August 13, 2012

A Legal Victory for Crohn’s Sufferers

Though Crohn’s Disease has mostly left me alone in my almost-middle age, there’s one thing it still does to me on a regular basis. It strikes me with an out-of-nowhere urge to use the bathroom.

It has hit me while driving, while sitting in work meetings and while standing in the supermarket cereal aisle.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:264rftGXMqqN31AZiurLAX]

When the urge hits, the worst thing is being in a store where the restrooms are for employees only. I can understand why some places do this. The general public has a history of misusing public restrooms: scrawling graffiti on stall doors, clogging toilets and leaving ’em that way, and engaging in a multitude of other disgusting behaviors.

But these places ought to make exceptions for those of us who suffer from these surprise attacks. Most do, but I’ve been in places where they stubbornly enforce the employees-only policy. In their minds, store owners have to do what they have to do. Fair enough. But so do Crohn’s and colitis sufferers. And in Massachusetts, their efforts to legally require places to allow them restroom access have paid off.

WBUR, Boston’s NPR affiliate, reports that Gov. Deval Patrick has signed the Restroom Access Bill into law, making the Bay State part of a trend. To date, 12 other states have passed some version of this legislation, Illinois being the first. From the report:

Under the new Mass. law, businesses with at least three employees on duty must allow anyone with Crohn’s, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, a colostomy bag — or with any other medical condition involving urgent toilet needs — to use an employee-only restroom if public facilities aren’t readily accessible. One catch: sufferers must have a valid doctor’s note or approved ID card verifying their disorder. Shopowners can be fined $100 for failure to approve a valid request.

A big advocate for the legislation was Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, who I’ve written about before. He wrote a letter to lawmakers asking them to support the legislation.

I want to thank those who worked so hard to make this happen.

Fortunately, more and more stores have public restrooms. But since we’re always in the store that doesn’t when the sudden urge hits (that’s how it sometimes feels, at least), this will provide some real peace of mind.

Digestive Tract