 Last
evening I had my first test of dealing with stress since the onset of
my ulcerative colitis. We've had a busy (long) weekend, and I'm slowly
getting my strength and stamina back, though I still fade pretty fast
at about 10 p.m. -- very peculiar feeling for a night-owl like me. Last
night I overate, and regretted it -- first stomach pains in a week, and
not pleasant. At 11 p.m. I headed for bed with a heating pad, only to
get a call from my wife and grand-daughter (staying with us for a
couple of days) telling me to "get down here right away". Groaning, I
made my way downstairs to discover that they had retreated into the
closed-off wing of our house (our house is open-concept, with a 30-foot
ceiling spanning its three levels). We're getting some chimney repairs
done, and in the process a bat had made its way into the house. My wife
definitely doesn't like bats, and we didn't disenchant the
grand-daughter of her impression that "there's a bird flying in the
house". We've had bats in the house twice before, and getting them out
is my job.
By trial and error, I've learned that the best
technique is to wait for the bat to land on the wall (they prefer the
brick chimney walls), trap it with the swimming pool net on the end of
a telescopic pole, slowly ease it down the wall, slide cardboard behind
the net, quickly replace the net with a plastic dish, and carry the
then-trapped bat outside and let it go. This takes time and patience,
and last night, sore and exhausted, I was short on both. But I just
took a deep breath, got my bat-catching 'tools', and settled in to do
the job. It took four tries and about an hour, but finally the bat was
caught and freed outside, and the fireplace vents duct-taped to prevent
further such visits.
After liberating my wife and grand-daughter
from their refuge in our West wing, I returned to bed, but, thanks to
the excitement and the damned steroid I'm taking for the colitis
(prednisone causes terrible insomnia) I could not sleep. It was only
then that I realized what a dangerous chance I had taken. Prednisone
essentially shuts down the colitis sufferer's (hyperactive) immune
system. When you're taking the drug, you can't get vaccines or other
treatments that rely on immune system response. If you're exposed to
something, you're really vulnerable to it, because your natural
immunity is gone. If this bat had turned out to have been rabid (a low
but not insignificant danger in this area) and had bitten me, what
would have happened? I lay there in bed laughing at myself -- my
grumbling and automatic action had been more than routine country
living pest removal. In my condition, it had been nothing less than an
act of reckless courage, even a potentially death-defying task. And yet
at the time I thought nothing of it.
I did what I did because I had no choice. We do what we must. And I lay there thinking about all the people who perform such feats of astonishing and necessary courage every day,
probably complaining and feeling rather sorry for themselves, but doing
what they must with no promise of respite, for much or all of their
lives, in poverty, anguish, pain, imprisonment, and/or abusive
conditions, and with no real hope of seeing an end to their suffering.
And even though they have no choice, I lay there thinking how in awe I
am of such people.
So here's to the sick, the suffering, the imprisoned, the self-imprisoned, the poor, the victims of tyrants and abusers and noonday demons, those who demonstrate necessary courage every day because they have no choice. If everyone on this planet heard and understand their stories, this world would be a much better place. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
