“Image de corps”

A short film by N Ozzer-Poison

(With subtitles)

Interior. Night. A bedroom somewhere in the attic of a dreaming head.

Dimmed lighting, and the mournful rasp of a horn drifts low from the ancient hi-fi, muted and sinuous on a bed of lilting piano and bass. The camera tracks slowly across the bedroom, over a discarded uniform cast over the back of a chair, coming to rest on some riding boots and sword; silently standing guard.

ARKAYEFF lies, hands behind his head, his attention is focused on the fan that turns relentlessly on the ceiling. He is inscrutable.

The camera is now on the ceiling looking down, through the fan blades.

ARKAYEFF (voice over):
“Basford sanglant”
“Bloody Basford”

PROTO NYMPH enters the room all lacy and see-through, slips under the cover like a velvet cat. ARKAYEFF turns to look at her, silent for a while then:

ARKAYEFF:

Est-il possible que nous soyons dans l'amour ?”
“Is it possible we are in love ?"

PROTO NYMPH looks at ARKAYEFF with knowing eyes; blue gleaming jewels. Unreadable.

PROTO NYMPH:

“Tous les hommes ont deux choses : Un bâton et un sac”
“All ze men‘ave two fings: A stick and a bag”

ARKAYEFF says nothing but rises from the bed, and in the dull glow of the light from the alarm clock and the radio. ARKAYEFF starts to peel off his shirt and . . .

N OZZER POISON
“Coupe ! C'est désespéré"
"Cut! zis is 'opless"

N Ozzer-Poison is not happy, incandescent with rage he walks out of the room throwing the script on the floor.

Fin

Do I have a disability?

In order to improve the running experience I have invested in a kind of cummerbund which holds me tightly round the middle and stops me feeling as if I am about to open up like a book.

One day I walked at speed to the forest recreation ground (mile and a half) which warmed me up, and then started to do the run / walk routine. Plodding so slowly and oafishly round the field whilst others seemed to spring painlessly past, carefree of their natural energy. Bastards!

I discovered that on the forest there is an outdoor gym which uses your own weight rather than weights. I sweated round all the bits of equipment and it felt really good. I felt almost euphoric as I pumped and pushed. I was me again.

I had also decided was that I was going to swim again, and so Clare and I arranged a visit to a company called Ostomart to look at some high waisted-swimmers. I was not really sure about these as have been used to budgie smugglers all my life. The thought of wearing such a voluminous garment in the water gave me black and white and grainy images from the mid 1950’s, and did not appeal.

We found ourselves in an office staffed by about 5 women behind computers, and on phones. They showed me a pair of the sail like swimmers; and these were the small ones. My god! You could catch fish with these things. I decided against them. I asked about changing my prescription to be with them and before we knew it we were in a room stacked to the ceiling with “products” and “supplies” The woman showing us round this odd new world seemed to know everything. She was easy to talk to, very re-assuring.

“People get used to a product and don’t like to change, so we have to stock old designs as well as modern ones.”

She described how some people have a rubber bag which they keep on for a really long time and which they wash out. Not what I want.

The sartorial problems of swimming seemed to half solved when I bought a pair of Bermuda shorts. These in combination with a pair of high-waisted elasticised pantaloons from Ostomart, seemed to offer the possibility of swimming again.

So yesterday I walked to the Noel Street Baths, and asked for a ticket to swim. The woman asked if had a city card. No I said, so she gave me a form to fill in.

I admit that forms can defeat me quite often but this one looked a doddle; name, address etc. But then I got to the question

“Do you have a disability?”

I was stumped and I didn’t know what to put. Does anyone out there know the answer to this question?

Having got my ticket I entered the pool area. It’s one of those really old pools that have changing cubicles all round the sides, and vitreous tiles .

I slipped into my new pantaloon / swimmer combo and opened up my new goggles. I was ready to swim. In the pool I started swimming with great pleasure. It was wonderful. I used to swim everyday. I really miss that, and the sauna too. As I got to other end I did a quick grope to make sure everything was still in place. The Bermuda shorts had slipped down to my hips, and my bag was poking out of the top like a large dog’s tongue.

I leaned against the wall and flipped up the goggles on my forehead and started to adjust everything. It was at this point that one of the goggle eyepieces slipped back down over one eye.

I had suddenly become a strange squinting man fumbling with his nethers in the shallow end. Not so cool. Shorts tightened to the max, I set off again, but at the other end I was one eyed and fumbling again.

I returned to the changing cubicle and bodged two holes in the waist band of the swimmers with my car key. These allowed my to rethread the boot lace at the front in such a way that I could really tighten them up. I emerged from the cubicle like a man wearing a whalebone corset.

BUT

In the pool I was swimming again. Brilliant.

And I’m so much better at swimming than running.

I’m happy

Learning to run again

Rome 2007, a limping Roger sweats his way around the Coliseum accompanied by The Marchioness of Basford and Sherwood.

It is now about 5 or 6 weeks since a masked man in green pyjamas cut me in half. I am feeling a lot more like the old me now. I have more energy and I have got used to the new plumbing.

One of the strange side effects of having colitis has been that my leg joints have been really painful at times. Sometimes it meant that I lurched slightly in the street, and being quite large and bewhiskered, people would cross the road in case I asked them for money.

At times I've had to use a walking stick, and I have been rendered virtually immobile. Some UC patients will have experience of Infliximab which I was on before the surgery. Apart from playing around with my immune system it also gave me a few weeks pain free walking before I would slowly seize up again.

I used to run a lot, many years ago now I admit. I used to casually run 10 miles without a thought. Then I got the Ulcerative Colitis and running didn't seem like such a good idea. It shook my guts, and as time progressed hurt my ankles and knees. So then I used to go to a gym and grunt on the machines there before swimming a lot of lengths - (100).

I was going to the gym right up to the day before I went into hospital to meet the masked man. Now, after the operation, my legs don't hurt me anymore. I can walk with ease.

One cold night last week I was coming back from a pub, and I took it into my head to combat the cold by running. So I started to run and despite still looking a little frightening to other pedestrians (not wearing running gear you see) it was not too painful.

So a few days later I set off to run round a large park area of Nottingham called The Forest. It was cold morning and my eyes and nose and ears were cold.

I started to run very slowly the length of The Forest. It was a bit odd, I seemed to have leaden legs and I ran out of breath pretty quickly. All around me were athletic people gliding by at speed almost as if riding bicycles whilst I trailed along at petty pace gasping for breath. Some of them slips of girls that ran like whippets, some of them big muscular men in football gear nonchalantly trotting past me like horses.

Today I had another go. This time I had planned to walk for a bit, run for a bit, walk for a bit, run etc. I started by going for a walk up a hilly road to warm and loosen the legs, then on the flat I began an inelegant run. I managed to keep it up for about three minutes (That really is bad) then I walked for about the same amount of time. I repeated the walk run routine for about 30 minutes.

My knees and ankles have become very weak, and going down hill I fear that my knees will give way.

IT DOESN'T MATTER! I'm running. Just a little bit, just a step at a time.

I will run again.

One month on

Clare and I on the Island of Islay several years ago
(I found a load of unprocessed films and this was one of the frames)

It’s a month now since the operation.

Physically I am pretty strong again, and I can do all the things I need to do. Walking into town is no problem, I can drive a car, I can eat what I like. Banquo is fairly well behaved and tends to venture into soliloquy mostly in the mornings, when he can be pretty loud. But after initial griping he calms down and is quiet for the rest of the day usually. I have had a few moments of worry, for example in the cinema when, in a quiet and tense moment in the film, I have feared Banquo was going to upstage the proceedings, but so far he hasn’t.

To give a quick, sanitised, wholesome run down of the waste collection and disposal system: There is a base plate made of thick plastic and rubber, with a hole in the middle. Its about the size of CD and flexible. The back of it is sticky with some extraordinary adhesive. Banquo sticks out through the hole, which I have to cut to the right size. Added to this, there is a bag which, about the size of a pitta-bread, sticks to the base plate. This bag is actually quite a wonder of invention. It is completely water proof and is made of a kind of thin papery material. It is also totally hermetically sealed so not a whiff escapes. The bottom of the bag is sealed in the three folds, and Velcro. This can be opened to drain the bag.

It isn’t pleasant, but the trick is to have everything you need ready, turn on the radio and just do it without thinking about what you are doing. Just listen to the radio, wash your hands and re-emerge into the world. After all isn’t this what you bum-wipers do really?

I have found that I have to learn to sleep in a different position. My preferred position- a kind of recovery position - being uncomfortable now. I slept like this one night and I think my body weight and the shape of my belly must have caused a bit of a leak which was really annoying. After speaking to the Stoma Nurse (who is brilliant) I was issued with a very attractive elastic belt which holds the whole thing in position more firmly. I have also discovered that attaching the base plate whilst standing up rather than sitting ensures a better seal.

Sometimes you feel a bit like a plate spinner who hasn’t got quite enough hands to keep everything going, but its OK I have learned it now.


Psychologically it has been OK, and I have not really lamented. I have wished to go for a swim and a sauna very much and I am working on the sartorial problems involved. I’m thinking of something like a triathlon suit which stretches from the thigh to the neck. I’ll solve it soon. I miss exercise and swimming and sweating a lot. I miss the chatter and gossip too.

I was asked the other day if, knowing how it is now, whether I would have had it done sooner? The answer is I’m not sure. Many people report an almost euphoric feeling and use phrases like “I’ve got my life back” I have not really felt quite like that. It is great to not have to constantly monitor my proximity to the nearest loo. It is great not to have to constantly carry what I used to call my “shit kit”. It feels a bit weird sometimes, and I suppose I do vainly wish I could disport myself in a pair of budgie-smugglers.

My scar is nearly healed. When I went to have my stitches out (actually staples like you find in stationers) I had every other one out the first day. Did they think I was going to open up like a book?

When I went to have the remainder taken out I felt a sense of freedom. Sadly when I inspected myself at home I found that she had missed FOUR! I had to return to have them hoiked out as well.

I have also discovered a well written, witty, and truthful blog by a man called Martin who has passed this way before. I recommend it to you. You can find it at

http://numbertwos.blogspot.com/

OK. Got to go back to sleep now; it’s 6 in the morning and I’m running a workshop later.

Where do I go from here?

My lawn, my maze.

I think it’s time to look back and reflect a bit on this experience. Now that I have got to what must be a stop or two above base camp.

I have been trying to remember how and why I made the decision to have this surgery. First and foremost there were considerable medical grounds for it. I can no longer have Ulcerative Colitis; I may have a few new things to think about, but that has gone forever. Also I was in a high risk group of developing bowel cancer, and that too, can never happen now. So there are two excellent reasons for the decision.

There are others as well though, the most obvious of which was that 2009 saw me at death’s door twice, and that can’t be good for you. I could still stand there again for some reason or another, but the most obvious potential causes have gone.

And for the foreseeable future at least, I won’t be constantly mapping my proximity to the nearest loo, no longer worried about getting a 40 second warning in the middle of lecture, or whilst operating a camera in some loo-less environment.

There is another set of reasons, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but getting shot of the medical establishment is a plus too. No more colonoscopies, no more 4 or 5 hour infusions of Infliximab, no more weird cold stunted conversations with doctors. I am through with that. There may be more to come, but in a sense I have moved forwards and away from their grasp in the long view. Was it Winston Churchill that said “If you are going through hell keep going”? Yes it was. I just looked it up.

Looking back on the experience to date, anxiety and fear have been my biggest enemies. Worse really than the hospital experience, and very undermining to a positive engagement with the actual moment of incision. Here I want to say that, for me, Hypnotherapy has been very useful, interesting, and powerful. True I was still scared as hell as I lay on the anaesthetist’s gurney, but I did at least have one or two strategies left in my nakedness.

There were also times when, on the run up to the operation, I was feeling physically and emotionaly happy, and I had to remember to notice and keep them. It might be happening tomorrow, but they weren’t getting me today. Just one day at a time.

I also tried hard to project myself forwards in time and remind myself that it would be different, that there would be another day. I am happy to say there is.

My own network of friends; people I love, people who love me helped hugely. It was good to take comfort from the support and warmth of these people. I love you all.

As for the future; who knows what it will bring. At the moment I am trying not to focus too clearly on the mechanics and plumbing of my new life, I am just doing it. I have enjoyed setting and achieving one tiny small goal – walking into town. This is like a little plant that will grow into my new gym, I intend to walk frequently into town, have a cup of tea and walk back. When that is easy I will do a different walk. Who knows I may even manage to run again one day.

In the future there is also the question of “reversal” in which I end up with a pouch inside me made from me. This would involve perhaps two more operations, and may mean that I am back to running to the loo. On the other hand it might not.

Who knows? Maybe I will end up fitter than anyone thought I would be. For the moment I shall aim for that.

Moving on

A photo taken during one of my more formal lectures.
(thanks to student camera)

Today Gabriel (youngest son) became a man. 18 years old, out there and up for everything. The day starts out in our bedroom with the whole family watching Gabriel unwrap his presents.

Since I am unable to bend in half normally, one of his first chores as a man is to tie my shoe laces. I think there’s a certain beautiful poetry to that. Wow! he’s done them pretty tight!

Banquo starts working, by making all sorts of gurgling noises. Still no real substance to his spectral interjections though.

Later on we went for a little walk, was still hard to walk and stand fully upright due to the cut down my belly. Nevertheless we did a few hundred meters down the road and back, and this less than a week after the operation.

Sadly, when I got home I felt absolutely knackered out, and had to go and lie down. Not long after that I was really sick, which really hurt where the incision was made.

There is a part of the post op experience that is like some accounting exercise, in which you compare what goes in with what comes out. I need to get Banquo going properly, so I need to eat FOOD. But I’m not hungry, and the thought makes me feel queasy.

I ate a few bits and pieces but actually even a fledging in the nest would be hungry at the end of those small morsals. This is something I need to work on. I just want liquid, but I need to eat more substance.

So now starts a new part of the experience in which I try to navigate my way back to strength and my real life.

One week after the operation now, and I feel I’m making progress. Today I walked all the way into town (2.8 miles according to the internet), did a bit of shopping (lamb chops) bus home, two visitors, cooking and eating said food. It feels good to start the return to my life. It will not be the same but it will be more mine.

25-12-2009

Christmas Day dawns in E14. There is a noisy change-over of nurses as they wish each other happy Christmas.

I get up, and move slowly like a wounded animal, down the corridor to the shower. I want to look bright and alert for the ward round, as healthy as possible.

Ivor had an intense discussion with a doctor last evening and he has discharged himself. His friends will pick him up at 8 am.

Martyn is nearly obscured by tubes, just some crazy white hair and eyes visible.

Steven has had a difficult night, and has an overactive stoma. Show off!

Another cup of tea, and I try to eat some of the hospital breakfast. There has been some stupendous farting but Banquo has yet to deliver a soliloquy.

Ward round. The doctors gather round my bed. They have been discharging everyone they can. The consultant looks down at me.

“Working yet?”

“Just farting”

“Feel OK?”

“Considering . . . yes I feel OK”

“OK then you can go”

They move onto the next bed. I start to look for my mobile and ring Clare.

How incredible. To think that I am getting out only 4 days after surgery. I am very pleased. Very pleased.

There was then a number of visits from the pharmacy, and instructions on what to do next and who to contact. It was probably only an hour and a half later that I left the hospital. Pushed down the corridors by a tiny nurse called Fatima with a scarf over her head, with Josh lolloping alongside carrying all my stuff. Out into the cold Christmas air and into the car. Back home.

The irony is that as soon as I got home I went to bed just as I would have been in hospital, but your own bed is different.

I slept.