"Life. Don't Talk To Me About Life."

As we approach May 25th, Intergalactic Hitchhiker's or "Towel Day" in honor of the late, great Douglas Adams, I can't help but notice how testy and prickly my recent posts have been -- hence the title for today which is lifted, of course, from Marvin the Paranoid Android's famous line to Arthur Dent in "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy."  Lately, I have not been a frood who really knows where his towel is.

It's amazing to me how much my perceptions are artificially colored by my health.  I remember the first time I was put on prednisone for Crohn's Disease -- it was an attempt to keep me stable during a major trip out to California for a visit to my sister-in-law's family.  I didn't realize that the sudden flush of well-being was due to the steroids.  It completely colored that trip.  To this day I absolutely love California and find any excuse I can to visit there.  All because I was on ten milligrams of prednisone and pain temporarily went away for the first time in over twenty years.

Lately the opposite has been going on.  The Crohn's is as bad as it has ever been, and the medication isn't working like I'd hoped, and prednisone doesn't cut it any more.  In the short term, it made me feel wonderful.  In the long term and at the higher doses I later required, it turned me from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.  I was less of a bastard when I quit smoking, which is saying a lot.  Add to that the constant raging appetite and the consequent weight gain which put me at over three hundred pounds and you might begin to understand why I no longer consider prednisone to be a treatment option.  And the constant rotten health has decidedly colored my outlook on the world.

In retrospect, for example, has the anger I've been feeling towards others, be they fellow drivers or fellow travelers, really been justified?  No, not really.  Is the new dog such an awful addition to our family?  Again, no, not really; he's actually pretty obedient and mellow.  It's just that my comfortable routine has been upset -- minimally -- and I am overreacting to it as a result of feeling poorly.

Well, boo hoo.

I hope that in the coming weeks, regardless of how things pan out with my health, I can have the patience and acceptance to make life enjoyable again.  I need to take stock of the good in my life every single day.  I may feel betrayed by my body, but I still have full use of it.  I may have pain, but it is truly not more than I can stand, most days.  Not everyone can make those claims.  Add to that the cliches of the roof over my head and the food in my belly, the clothes on my back and the love in my life, and even I can see that I need to lighten up.

So, "don't talk to me about life."  I may have to surprise us both with the answer.