Coping with Crohn’s Disease
Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½When you first learn you are diseased, your limbs surge forward of their own volition and you are standing there on the white, cold floor. The doctor says, “Come back next week and we’ll start the blood tests. We need to stop this from going further.” You wonder if you should thank him or swear at him, tear up his office and scream. He points you to the waiting room and when you manage to lose your way anyhow and the nurse with the big nose and ugly shoes has to point you again, you think, Will I forget how to look for signs?
When you first drive home from the doctor and it’s not just a checkup, you turn on the radio so the vibrations fill your seat and your ears. You turn it off. You don’t buckle your seatbelt.
When you first have to swallow nineteen pills, and you’ve never swallowed any before because there’s always been chewable, you choke and gurgle down what must be three liters of water. You try Gatorade, milk, orange juice. You throw up the Gatorade, the milk, the orange juice, and the pills. You try again.
When you first tell your friends, they say “I’m so sorry” and touch your arm. You want to hit them, to punish them for their soft hands and pink cheeks. You tell them not to worry about it. They forget in stages, first just by not thinking of it, not wondering or asking if you are in pain.
When you first sleep alone, with the lights off, curling into yourself in the musky deep warmth of the bed, you can’t help but close your eyes. Behind your eyelids, you see only shades of red and black, a pregnant sea of lurking ants the size of mitochondria, the system on which you’ve been running and running and running…
When you first drive home from the doctor and it’s not just a checkup, you turn on the radio so the vibrations fill your seat and your ears. You turn it off. You don’t buckle your seatbelt.
When you first have to swallow nineteen pills, and you’ve never swallowed any before because there’s always been chewable, you choke and gurgle down what must be three liters of water. You try Gatorade, milk, orange juice. You throw up the Gatorade, the milk, the orange juice, and the pills. You try again.
When you first tell your friends, they say “I’m so sorry” and touch your arm. You want to hit them, to punish them for their soft hands and pink cheeks. You tell them not to worry about it. They forget in stages, first just by not thinking of it, not wondering or asking if you are in pain.
When you first sleep alone, with the lights off, curling into yourself in the musky deep warmth of the bed, you can’t help but close your eyes. Behind your eyelids, you see only shades of red and black, a pregnant sea of lurking ants the size of mitochondria, the system on which you’ve been running and running and running…
