I've been really busy, blah blah blah. But one of the real reasons that I haven't written much lately is that I've been mildly embarrassed to write about what's actually on my mind. Which is stupid, but you'll see why in a minute. I've been thinking about this secret topic quite often -- multiple times a day, every day, without fail. It's become another goal for 2009. And it is the one thing in my life that I think about a lot that I have been pretty much utterly silent about. I have no company in this preoccupation, nobody to bounce ideas off, no sense of whether I'm normal or really, deeply weird. The reason is that to let anybody in would require talking about poop, which I am extremely reluctant to do. It's one of the signs of adulthood, right, that talking about poop stops being exciting and funny and starts being something you take pains to avoid at all costs?
But here's the thing. I have ulcerative colitis, a mysterious autoimmune inflammatory condition of the colon. It is painless, at least so far for me, and the only symptom is, uh, the condition of my poop. There are certain characteristics when things are bad, and certain characteristics when they are not so bad, and certain characteristics when I suppose the proper term is that I am "in remission" and I forget anything was ever wrong to begin with. Not long after I first got the diagnosis, the doctor gave me some medicine and everything was good, and he told me I was "in remission," and I shook my head and thought, silly guy, silly words, what he means is, I'm cured, all better, done with that. But it turns out it came back, and this has happened a couple of times, enough that I'm starting to be a little less carefree about the whole thing, and a little more compliant about making sure I take my medicine exactly as prescribed. And I've been gradually starting to think, this sucks, and 2009 is going to be the year my gastroenterologist and I definitively cure ulcerative colitis, at least for me and maybe for other folks, too. Because I'm sick of scrutinizing my poop to see if I'm getting better or worse or if nothing is happening at all. I'm ready to join a clinical trial or go macrobiotic or start some groovy acupuncture therapy or all of the above. I don't want to live with this condition if I can fight it.
So I've been thinking about that and thinking about how, isn't it strange that this thing we all do is still so completely private and mysterious and inaccessible. Like, when I was first going for my diagnosis, I had to fill out a bunch of forms and answer a bunch of questions about my poop -- descriptive adjectives, clinical terms evocative of certain conditions. And I had no idea what "normal" is. I'm pleased at how infrequently life has given me occasion to witness the poop of others; in fact, until I was trying to answer important medical questions about it, I'd been pleased at how little I'd ever really observed my own. Even now that I am trying to gear up for The Year of the Definitive Cure, I am dutiful about observing my symptoms the only way I can, but I am hardly rigorous about recording those observations. I got to thinking maybe technology could solve that -- maybe an anonymized website where people can upload cameraphone pictures to a timestamped blog, where you can track your own, uh, output and share them with your doctor, but also compare them to other anonymous patients and learn what's normal. I even researched some possible domain names, but soon learned that, as usual, porn has gotten all the good URLs first. Anyway, I think my gastroenterologist is going to be very surprised when I unveil my plans for us for the upcoming year.
2009. Year of Shakespeare, Year of the Definitive Cure. That's what I've been thinking about.
(I'm also working for a strong finish to the Year of Hip Hop. I really like Jurassic 5, Eminem, and my 8 Mile Soundtrack. Kanye West is ok, but not the CD I reach for. Didn't like Snoop Dog's Ego Trippin, but like some of his earlier work. I like Nas, and am trying to make up my mind about Young Jeezy now. Keep the good suggestions coming.)