Personal Injury

I just want to take a shit in peace.

For four straight days the pain has been nagging me. Sometimes it gets loud. Sometimes it prods me awake. Sometimes it passive-aggressively clears its throat to let me know it still disapproves. But for ninety six hours it has not shut up.

Like most marathon complaining sessions I've been on the receiving end of, I only have a vague idea where things went south. I went to sleep on Friday fine and I woke up Saturday with a shooting pain in my arm.

Which is actually a stabbing pain under my shoulder blade.

Which is actually a pulling feeling in my neck. People don't realize that the spine is located simultaneously everywhere on the body.

On Sunday I tried to ignore the constant harping, thinking it would just get bored without any attention. By Monday I addressed the complaints in a calm and mature manner. I changed the incline of the seat of my car. I throttled back on my workouts. I was willing to compromise.

But the pain just kept on whining. On Tuesday I brought in an arbiter. My doctor gave a vague explanation about vertebrae and maybe pinched nerves, but did nothing to settle negotiations.

Now it's Wednesday morning and I just want to take a shit in peace. I'm not asking for it to stop. I'd never be so bold as to ask for some actual sleep. But I think I've earned this one damn moment of privacy.

I lean forward, the shoulder yelps. I lean right, the elbow locks out, holding its breath until it gets its way. I lean back and raise my hips up...

My fingers go numb. I feel like I can handle the silent treatment for a while.

I have no idea how I'm actually supposed to use the toilet from this position.

Pain is part of it. That's what I keep telling myself. I lost track of exactly what “it” was a while ago. But pain is certainly part of it. I know that much.

The doctor offered me something for it. The pain, not the big nebulous it.

I told him I needed to be sharp for work. As if the lack of sleep and the constant shrill jabs in my everywhere had no effect on my focus. The real reason was that I didn't want to miss out on it.

The pain. The other it the pain is a part of. If I wanted a quiet, pretty nervous system that I didn't notice until it was time to fuck I would have made a lot of different life choices. What I hear when I'm told to take “something for the pain” is to sleep through the parts of my own life that I can't handle like some fucking junkie.

Alright. One way or another this has to get done. I decide to go with the lean forward and find out my shoulder was yelping because someone was stabbing it to death.

Stab. Stab. Just take it.

Stab until every place where my spine is, from my arm to my jaw, just has to weigh in on this, like it was any of their damn business. And I once again briefly understand why someone would want his friend Vicodin to wake him up when it was all over.

When I finish I go back to squirming. There's still no quiet. Just different voices that haven't quiet worn me down, yet. This has to be the most unpleasant time I've been out of breath on the toilet, which is a surprisingly competitive field.

I stare at the mirror the entire time I wash my hands. There's an old man staring back at me. He's stiff and awkward, his face a grim topography of asymmetrical squints and twitches. For the first time in four days I feel some relief.

I've never been much good with relationships. I prefer adversaries. And the it is trying to stare me down right now. The old man. What time and tear will make of me when the complaints finally offer me no respite, no fix.

“I'm rarely beaten, friend.”

He's the first person I've honestly spoken to about this since it started. I do well with adversaries.

Now I have to shave. Let's see how that goes.