I WISH MY HANDS WOULD FUNCTION WELL.
I wish my hands would function well
but they do not, so I will tell
how this affliction affects me
in managing my ostomy.
Perhaps it’s best if I explain
that this dysfunction and the pain
is caused by my neuropathy
which acts on me peripherally.
This means that hands and feet are such
that they don’t function very much
and the pain that they emit
will sometimes make me feel like shit.
Which brings me to my stoma, where
my hands are needed for its care
and, as my hands are not too good,
they don’t work as most hands should.
Our hands are very useful tools,
which can be used by any fools,
but if they do not work, then we
are handicapped to some degree.
Upon reflection, some might say
arthritis acts in the same way
and so do strokes to some extent,
which may prove hard to circumvent.
So, it is worth acknowledging
difficulties crap hands can bring
in everything we try to do
especially when it comes to pooh.
It may not be too bad if you
are able to do normal pooh
for then, you can just crap and wipe,
sometimes within a single swipe.
But, if you have a stoma, you
have many more things you must do.
(continued->)
I WISH MY HANDS WOULD FUNCTION WELL.
(continued->)
You need your hands to function well
to manage pooh and quell the smell,
otherwise, it may work out
that output is spread all about.
You need your hands to hold the gear
with confidence and without fear
that it might slip away from you
and leave you holding just the pooh.
The stoma bags are well and good
as long as you can know you could
cut the hole the size you want
then bags become a symbiont.
They have to fit both snug and firm
so, if your hands are too infirm,
the chances are it will not fit
and you will end up in the shit.
There are some bags for ostomates
that with bad hands can just frustrate
because they’re fiddly to apply
which means we wouldn’t even try.
And, irrigation would be out
because what that is all about
is holding onto a device
which, if it slipped, would not be nice.
So we’re restricted to the stuff
that we can use, and that is tough
because there’s gear available
to those who might be more able.
For those who have two working hands
it may be hard to understand
the plight of those whose hands are crap
so, stomas are a handicap.
B.Withers 2024
(Acknowledgements to ‘aTraveler’ for this concept.)
