Being young is a joy, I can just about recall it! That feeling that you can do anything, experience everything, burn the candle at both ends and not suffer in anyway! Young and optimistic, carefree and blase about what the future holds. Aware of the effects of having Crohns and the consquences in the event of a problem didn't matter. When you're young, you're fearless and think you can deal with anything. It won't happen anyway, when you're young!
It was a relief to me in my late teens, to think i'd avoided another surgery, another bullet heading my way had miraculously been deflected by steroids.
Why not enjoy and make the most of it?
So as you do, you live life to the full, i was going to participate in all the things and experiences my work friends and friends generally did.
Travel around the country in the forlorn hope that my football team might cheer us up on a trip back from Torquay or Brighton, or wherever we travelled to for our 90 minutes of footballing brilliance, which usually was far from brilliant and was miserable and dour. It wasn't always about the football, which is a good job really! It was the craic of a group of people, male and female , daft enough to commit ourselves to the Tigers rain or shine, usually rain. It was a pre match community enjoying a drink and being committed to a cause. Commited in those days could have several definitions!
A pre match pint and meal, a standard football pie in the ground.
Football was a small amount of 'enjoyment' but was very important as a focal point.
Much of the rest was exactly what young people got up to at that time in the late 70' through to the 80's.
This was all so far from being stuck in a hospital ward with a bedpan, drips and catheters. Being dependent on nursing staff for what seemed like every possible thing, dignity in tatters, handing yourself over to them!
Why not enjoy it? Why not make the most of travelling, living and sharing 'everything' with friends, thriving on freedom? Except it was never quite 'everything'
'Everything' didn't include never eating anything before travelling for fear of the crohns rearing its head and desperately needing to use the toilet, the embarrassment , abdominal cramp and anxiety!
'Everything didn't include consciously taking note of the location and quality of toilet facilities, before and during the football. This was only a diluted, censored version of 'everything'
'Everything' didn't include a number of things that sure as hell are not going to hell you or anyone else about!.
I could keep the rest to myself, unless somehow my embarrassment or discomfort became obvious.
So living life to the full meant exactly what it said on the tin. Not just in this area but generally, socialising , meeting people , all the other things that were and will remain private.
Yet, despite my desire to be carefree and blase, no matter what i was getting up to, Crohns was always with me, getting to me, reminding me I can't enjoy this totally, i must worry, get anxious about many things, a lot of things Crohns sufferers know only too well about.
Nevertheless, i was young, the candle still burnt away, and i often had to deal with some of the 'rough' bits with those warm, enjoyable 'smooth' bits that we all need, young and old.
I continued with certain medications, still managing to put the thought of a scalpel or surgeon to the back of my mind.
It was a great time despite all the negatives Crohns did to me, and there were quite a few. Life was sweet and full, i even allowed myself to treat Crohns as an irritating imposter.
I can always look back and say they were great enjoyable carefree times, with quite a few less enjoyable experiences mingled in.
Crohns won't take that time away from me, whetever it does now or in the future, it's mine. It's mine, will always be mine, no matter whether it was a period of carefree 'calm' before a 'storm'
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