Gratitude is a Powerful Action Word

I wanted to post this before my hour long IV therapy was finished. Mission accomplished!

I literally just connected the first of two bags of tigecycline that will drip into my vein over the next hour. I have been doing this every day for 12 weeks, and I have two days left. It has been a goat rodeo over the past few years, but I have found something to be grateful for more often than not in the journey. Today I am looking forward to the last two doses being exactly that. PICC comes out Monday morning.

I will still be on oral antibiotics for the next year.

I learned about mycobacterium abscessus complex (MBAC) in a hurry when I had surgery to close off the perforation in my colon along with fistula takedown. I have had the MBAC for awhile…no idea exactly when I got it and I honestly don’t care. I just want to recover.

I am most grateful that I live in a time where this can be treated. It apparently is among one of the most difficult bacterium to treat and occurs more in the lungs of those who have been immunosuppressed. It is prominent among those with cystic fibrosis. I was very grateful as I read up on MBAC in other parts of the body.

Mine is in the abdomen, and I have had quite a few drains over the past 19 months. Some were IR, some were drained with a seton post operatively, and a few were superficial enough that my surgeon was able to do it in his office. I will not need to convince anyone that I have been in a gun battle, or a knife battle, or a shark encounter. My abdomen looks like any one of those scenarios occurred.

The second big gratitude moment required quite a bit of reflection and self-deprecation. I had to learn to laugh at my foibles. THAT took some action! It was so hard to constantly be shitting like a goose pretty much everywhere I was post op, after getting home, and anywhere I went. I have a neurogenic bowel (L5/S1 myelomeningocele) so even when I am “normal’ accidents are a part of life. As a child I was made fun of terribly and considered ending my own life in 6^th grade because of the shame. I remember the words as if they just happened.

When I was in treatment for addiction, I had an opportunity to revisit those days and resentments. I learned how they affected me then and how addiction used my shame to say “feed me.”

You know what’s cool? I was in opiate withdrawal and was keeping the washing machine active…I was hoping to slow my opiate wean and get a little sympathy (another way addiction feeds itself). The counselor said, “How about wearing some Depends?”

OMFG. Was he kidding me? A fucking adult diaper? Good God man, gimme some sympathy! I mean, Jesus!

So, I said that there was no way I was going to feel embarrassed by wearing a diaper. He said, “OK, well then just leave a trail of shit around everywhere you go, I am certain it’ll be less embarrassing.”

Asshole.

Then suddenly I started laughing – with him – and for the first time in my life shame went out the door.

Oh, did I mention that I have late onset Crohn’s too? God hates me. But suddenly I was introduced to Rule 62, which is DO NOT TAKE YOURSELF SO DAMNED SERIOUSLY. God doesn’t really hate me, either.

Yeah, that one took work. But when I shared how – wait, gotta switch bags so I don’t have to burp my IV line.

(Jeopardy tune)

Done. Pull the pole down on my lap and switch it out. I am good at this.

Anyway, I shared with my recovering friends today that I had to practice gratitude especially after surgery last week, because my diapers the day afterward looked like the foil after Jiffy Pop was finished. If you know you know, otherwise watch a vintage Jiffy Pop commercial on YouTube.

We all laughed and there was no shame. Just moving forward.

Now I must be honest here. Tigecycline is no joke. It gives a nausea that even Zofran can’t seem to touch. It makes me think of my friends who have endured much more with chemo for their own hell of treatments. My journey is not as tough. But that required action on my part to get out of self to understand others’ pain. And for an addict, that’s no easy task. For someone with chronic non cancer pain that’s no easy task. Need I go on? Nope, you get it.

My bride is turning on the tube to watch a British baking show. I gave myself an hour to write my thoughts on gratitude as I watched the yellow fluid drip into the clear cylinder headed to my PICC. Unreal gratitude to her for dealing with the ups and downs of not just the past 12 weeks, but frankly the past several decades of marriage. How have I gotten so blessed?

I decided last February as I wrote in another substack that my will is to know and understand God’s will for me and for me to accept it. My Irish father used to say, “I will do God’s will and when he calls me home, I will be there!”

Man, I am glad I learned that.

IV is about done. Two more doses, PICC out on Monday. Gratitude, man.