A CONTEMPLATIVE INCIDENT.
Last night there was an incident,
which turned into an accident,
that made me contemplate my life,
my stoma, sicknesses and wife.
It had been quite a normal day
with nothing much out of the way,
and nothing to make me alarmed
that I may be in someway harmed.
I irrigate just after tea,
so stoma stuff won’t bother me,
and I can go to bed at night
knowing everything’s alright.
Well! Yesterday was just the same,
until, at last, the night-time came
and early on it dawned on me
that I would need to have a pee.
So, up I got and to the loo
I made my way, because I knew
that sleep is very hard to get
if I delay and then get wet.
But, as I stood there half asleep,
I found it very hard to keep
my focus on what I should do
whilst I was standing at that loo.
All of a sudden, I felt sick,
which made things much more dramatic,
for I must have been quite unwell
as I lost consciousness and fell.
I do not know how long I laid
so ignominiously displayed,
but when I started to come round
there were a few things that I found.
The first thing that I noticed was
I could not move myself because
I was so exhausted that
I simply lay there prone and flat.
When I came round , my wife was there,
showing her concern and care
by mopping up the pool of blood
that oozed upon the floor in flood.
For as I fell, I must have hit
my head, and thereby made it split,
so, as my world had been upturned
my bleeding made my wife concerned.
This was the focus of discussion,
and secondary to concussion,
and, as far as I could tell
I was nauseous as well.
I could not move, but still I knew,
that to be sick within the loo
was better than over the floor,
which meant the cleaning would be more.
After some time, I managed to
drag my head above the loo
to puke and wretch so violently,
mixing with blood coagulantly.
Once that was done, yet still I knelt,
only then it was I felt
something I barely could believe
the great weight on my stoma sleeve.
For I knew that to irrigate
helps to avoid this sort of state
so, why should my sleeve be so full
when I had been so dutiful.
There was no time to hesitate,
for pressure on my sleeve was great,
this meant that there was too much waste
which needed emptying in haste.
By my rapid calculation
in this dramatic situation
there was three or four litres
of foul-smelling excreta.
This gave me the bright idea
that I might have some diarrhoea,
along with sickness this would be
indicative of a bug you see.
And so, I go to bed again,
free from worry and from pain
to contemplate the night’s events
and ponder what it represents.
I feel so fortunate that I
am still alive and did not die,
for, at my age, collapsing thus
and come around, is just a plus.
I’m also fortunate to know
that irrigation goes to show
that if I had not had my sleeve
the mess would be hard to conceive.
But the most fortunate of all,
in the case of such a fall,
was to have a caring wife
to make sure I came back to life.
It’s times like these that we should seize
the moment someone tries to please
us by their kindness and their care
and the fact that they are ‘there’.
It’s in those moments of great need,
that we can harvest that small seed
of love that we planted before
and nurtured ‘till it grew some more.
And so, I say with great delight,
we must have done something that’s right
to reach a point where we both care
enough to know that we’ll be there.
Be Withers 2021
Last night there was an incident,
which turned into an accident,
that made me contemplate my life,
my stoma, sicknesses and wife.
It had been quite a normal day
with nothing much out of the way,
and nothing to make me alarmed
that I may be in someway harmed.
I irrigate just after tea,
so stoma stuff won’t bother me,
and I can go to bed at night
knowing everything’s alright.
Well! Yesterday was just the same,
until, at last, the night-time came
and early on it dawned on me
that I would need to have a pee.
So, up I got and to the loo
I made my way, because I knew
that sleep is very hard to get
if I delay and then get wet.
But, as I stood there half asleep,
I found it very hard to keep
my focus on what I should do
whilst I was standing at that loo.
All of a sudden, I felt sick,
which made things much more dramatic,
for I must have been quite unwell
as I lost consciousness and fell.
I do not know how long I laid
so ignominiously displayed,
but when I started to come round
there were a few things that I found.
The first thing that I noticed was
I could not move myself because
I was so exhausted that
I simply lay there prone and flat.
When I came round , my wife was there,
showing her concern and care
by mopping up the pool of blood
that oozed upon the floor in flood.
For as I fell, I must have hit
my head, and thereby made it split,
so, as my world had been upturned
my bleeding made my wife concerned.
This was the focus of discussion,
and secondary to concussion,
and, as far as I could tell
I was nauseous as well.
I could not move, but still I knew,
that to be sick within the loo
was better than over the floor,
which meant the cleaning would be more.
After some time, I managed to
drag my head above the loo
to puke and wretch so violently,
mixing with blood coagulantly.
Once that was done, yet still I knelt,
only then it was I felt
something I barely could believe
the great weight on my stoma sleeve.
For I knew that to irrigate
helps to avoid this sort of state
so, why should my sleeve be so full
when I had been so dutiful.
There was no time to hesitate,
for pressure on my sleeve was great,
this meant that there was too much waste
which needed emptying in haste.
By my rapid calculation
in this dramatic situation
there was three or four litres
of foul-smelling excreta.
This gave me the bright idea
that I might have some diarrhoea,
along with sickness this would be
indicative of a bug you see.
And so, I go to bed again,
free from worry and from pain
to contemplate the night’s events
and ponder what it represents.
I feel so fortunate that I
am still alive and did not die,
for, at my age, collapsing thus
and come around, is just a plus.
I’m also fortunate to know
that irrigation goes to show
that if I had not had my sleeve
the mess would be hard to conceive.
But the most fortunate of all,
in the case of such a fall,
was to have a caring wife
to make sure I came back to life.
It’s times like these that we should seize
the moment someone tries to please
us by their kindness and their care
and the fact that they are ‘there’.
It’s in those moments of great need,
that we can harvest that small seed
of love that we planted before
and nurtured ‘till it grew some more.
And so, I say with great delight,
we must have done something that’s right
to reach a point where we both care
enough to know that we’ll be there.
Be Withers 2021
