Its a vamped up version of a post you guys have already read..only far better written.
“Saturday”
Every day had its bad
points. Even the best of days would involve an incident that left him
wondering; “why me?” This day, though, was a day that will remain in his memory
like salt in the oceans. It is cemented in, deep, haunting him, stalking him.
To kill the memory would be to kill himself; the memory, the, becoming his
murderer.
“It was a Saturday. Mother and I were shopping in
Kingston. We stopped off at the food court for lunch before heading home. The
trip had been successful; I’d found my new jeans and mother her jacket. She
went up to get our food and asked me to stay with the bags to ensure that they
weren’t stolen. For anyone else: no problem. However, as she was queuing and I
was watching the bags, an urge hit. The nearest toilet was at least a
two-minute walk away. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave the bags but I
couldn’t stand in the middle of a crowded room and soil myself.
I panicked.
I walked as fast as I could through the crowded
room, clenching tighter with every step. My efforts were futile. I kept a brave
face on and pretended like it hadn’t happened. I calmly walked to the door of
the men’s toilets and, with my head held high, entered.
I don’t know why I chose to not wear a diaper that
day, but the demon of regret sat there laughing at me as I lost another pair of
boxers to Ulcerative Colitis. I waited to hear that the sink area of the toilet
was empty before rushing out of my cubicle, putting the dirty underwear in the
bin and escaping without being seen. I returned to our table at the food court
before mother had realised I’d even left. I didn’t bother mentioning what had
just happened; I just ate my lunch and smiled; smiled like everything was
alright. The same smile I would force each and every day since being diagnosed
with this awful disease. She bought it, just like everyone always did.
The experience in the food court was, as much as it
pains me to say it, normal by this point. On numerous occasions, I would have
accidents without people realising and quietly sort myself out. It is what
happened next that haunts me in my sleep-the Freddy Krueger of my dreams.
At approximately 16:35, we got in the car and began
the hour drive home. I was at the wheel, as I wanted the practice for my
imminent driving test that I was so desperate to pass. The sun was shining, the
radio was blasting and the food court memory was slowly fading away.
We were approaching Worcester Park, so home was
still another 30 minutes away, when my tummy rumbled. A shot of pain in my lower
abdomen queued the urge.
It was bad.
I saw a pub to stop at and go, but it was too late.
Three seconds after the urge had hit, three
seconds, disaster struck for the second time that day. The food court
incident was a mere paper cut compared to the coma in which I had now fallen. It
had not occurred to me until a few moments later that not only was I not
wearing a diaper, but I was no longer wearing underwear due to the prior mess.
The new jeans that I had bought only that afternoon were ruined. The leather
seat of my car-to-be was ruined. My confidence, pride and self-esteem were
officially ruined.
The noise and, of course, the smell, made it
impossible to hide from mother. She offered support but I immediately cut her
off. “Please, don’t say anything”.
I opened the windows and we sat in silence for the
remainder of the journey. I held back the tears and focussed on the road,
trying to ignore the fact that my legs and buttocks were covered in my Colitis
ridden, warm, bloody stool.
We pulled into the driveway to the sight of my
father standing in the porch with a towel and a black bin bag. He wrapped the
bag around me, like a giant diaper, and I slowly waddled into the porch, up the
stairs and into the bathroom.
The floor of the shower turned from a crisp white to
a mixture of red and brown. I had asked my parents to leave the room, so that I
could clean myself in an attempt to regain some sense of self-worth. I didn’t
need them. Having them help by this point would have been too late. The damage
was well and truly done.
I dried myself off, put on new clothes and walked
downstairs. No one said a word. The day just carried on, just like all the
others. We sat eating dinner pretending like what had happened was normal. In a
sense, though, the months of rectal bleeding, popping 30 pills a day and
multiple accidents had created a sense of normality to the events that
Saturday. A sense of normality far from normal.
After the appointment, i wondered around the hospital for a bit. I want to try and stop affiliating St. Helier with horrible memories. I walked around all the places i'd walk when i was in there, went in the same lifts, looked at the entrance to each ward..it was strange. I knew what was going on behind those doors first hand.
