HALFLING: A FAREWELL TO LEGS - Part 14

The latest in the series about my collapse, surgery and subsequent life in a wheelchair, and the attitude of society towards the disabled - not quite humans, but 'Halflings‘.

This is what I’ve become; I envy the incontinent. Constipation is a constant in my life now; I used to laugh at those mythical men who’d rock up at A&E saying that they’d ‘accidentally’ fallen on a vacuum cleaner nozzle and it had gone up their bums but if I didn’t know any better, I’d think that I’d fallen on one of those Calippo ice pops, which had shot up my wazzoo and lodged there some weeks ago, refusing to melt.

I’d be lying if I said my life was a laugh a minute at the mo; it’s gone from the Fatal Attraction of my yummy youth to the Faecal Impaction of my disabled dotage. I habitually peer into the toilet bowl after using it with all the hopefulness and heart-racing that generally occurs only when we seek out the face of a loved one in a crowd. The fact that I have A Growth in my colorectal region which was recently CAT-scanned as being potentially cancerous (now awaiting result) doesn’t help, as it tends to get in the way of doing one’s filthy business. Suppositories don’t touch the sides; they’re like dud fireworks, one hiss and it’s all over. I was one of those pervy youngsters who always found the idea of enemas quite sexy but since one of the adorable District Nurses who come in weekly to dress my pressure wound said darkly ‘You’ve got a lovely bedroom, Julie - I’ve seen people have to redecorate after home enemas!’ I’ve gone off the idea somewhat. The idea of ‘manual excavation’ blows my mind - it’s everything we’re told not to do by our parents from the time we’re toddlers (‘Do NOT put your hands up someone’s bum - dirty!’) but does make me wonder if the person doing it was attractive to us, would that make it better - or worse? When I was a young girl, I was so modest that when my mother sent me to the shops to buy toilet paper, I’d buy a box of tissues instead, no matter how many times I got scolded for doing so. But now that more people (five months of hospital staff, five months of District Nurses) have seen my anus than Boy George’s, I’m not that bothered about anything connected to bodily functions anymore.