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Having fun, writing about the stuff I like

Epic Shit #1: Imagined shit is worse than real shit

Oscar Foulkes March 21, 2016 Uncategorized No comments
This insight came to me as I was kneeling at the toilet bowl. A few days before, my wife had spent a night fighting an attack of gastro. I was quaking at the thought of finding myself in the same situation. Think about it – I could barely swallow sips of water. How horrible would it be to have a reversed flow of acid-laced stomach contents rushing up through my raw throat?

Well, here I was, without any control over the situation; having to endure whatever came my way. I won’t deny that it was horrible (I certainly shed a retch-induced tear), but the unpleasant situation was a lot more bearable than I thought it would be.

We get apprehensive about things in advance of them happening, probably rightly so, but it’s amazing how well we cope with situations, relative to how we imagined we would, when there just isn’t any option.

There’s a lot to be said for ‘stiff upper lip’.

epic_shitI was given this notebook by a friend, at the conclusion of a six-week course of radiotherapy to my throat. Radiotherapy is targeted at specific areas, so it’s theoretically an easier experience than chemotherapy. However, my throat became extremely painful, which affected eating and drinking, speech and more. I’m a better ‘writer’ on keyboard than with pen in hand, so here goes with a selection of things I would have written in the notebook if I could.

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