John, 70. Sudbury on Thames
“Then I’ll begin”. That was the introduction spoken on BBC’s children’s programme, Watch with Mother, before a story was read out to a nation of expectant pre-school children. Even as a squirmy, fidgety kid I was able to sit, stock-still and rapt as the tale unfolded from the lips of the female presenter.
If only I could go back to those days.
IBS makes for me, the act of sitting an Olympic sport during one of my regular flare-ups. Rumblings and grumblings, bloating and the anticipated explosions down below don’t make for comfortable reading. But I know I have a sympathetic and understanding audience here, so I can at least relax and not blush with shame and embarrassment during the telling.
These days being ever so much older, and marginally wiser, I know when to retreat from public life and to the tranquility of home and an understanding and long co-suffering wife. (She doesn’t have the condition I’d like to quickly point out here; but she’s lived with mine during our 40 year marriage. Sorry love.) Cinema tickets and restaurant reservations always had to be spontaneous and same day, so I’d know I was in a ‘good place’ IBS-wise.
An understanding doctor is, and has been, a wonderful thing in helping to normalise my life. In the bad old days of my youth and young adulthood, when so much less was known and understood about IBS, life was pretty insufferable, for me at least. Today, there are lots of options to help control, dampen and manage this wretched condition.
With the advances of medication, research and advice, life with IBS can be lived ‘normally’. That’s why forums like this one are an absolute boon. If only there was one like it back in my day, I might have got out a lot more.