I am not proud to admit it, but this morning I completely lost it. More than possibly ever.
I banged my fists. I wanted to hurl a smoothie across the room. I was consumed by blind rage directed mainly at myself, and also at my wife and carer. Only the table took a pounding. But the anger was real, and it was ugly.
And over what? Not the wheelchair. Not the prognosis. Not the pain, or even the diapers. A stupid pair of trousers.
I eventually gathered my breath, and the way I do that is by thinking about writing. The blog has always been that for me: a place to slow down enough to see clearly. And once I could see, I could make a plan.
Why Trousers?
I don’t fully know. But here is what I do know.
The morning started well and calmly. At seven I went to do yoga, but my balance was terrible, so I went back to bed and slept another hour. When I woke I felt less than great, and then I tried to put on my jeans. They were so hard to get on. Too tight.
For years I worked very hard to lose weight and drop a trouser size. That achievement meant something to me on many levels, emotionally and physically. When I had to ask the carer for a bigger pair, and even those were a stretch, something inside me snapped.
The context makes it worse. Since moving to a wheelchair I have stopped walking and running entirely. I am stagnant. I exercise, but far less than before.
Then there is the food. The doctors recommended a feeding tube because of the choking risk, which I am desperately trying to avoid. So we made a complete 180-degree turn: away from the healthy Mediterranean diet I loved, toward texture-based eating. Soft food. Thick liquids or smooth ones. Smoothies, soups, minced meat, eggs, dairy. And yes, comfort food. Ice cream is easier to swallow in every sense.
And on top of all of that, PSP causes terrible constipation. Put it all together and it is a toxic recipe. I have been watching the numbers climb and worrying, especially since the suspected TIA.
So the trousers were not really about the trousers. They were the container for everything I have been quietly swallowing.
The Plan
It passed within an hour. Writing helped, as it always does.
My wife, carer, and I are now recalibrating again: more fish, smarter proteins, lower fat, working within the constraints I cannot change. I did not choose this fight. But since it has chosen me, I intend to win it. That is how I am built. I know no other way.
And to anyone reading this who wants to offer suggestions: I am genuinely grateful. But that is not what this is. This is a vent. This is me saying out loud that the anger is there, it is real, and sometimes it needs a table to bang on and a blog to land in. That is enough for today.
What the Trousers Really Cost Me
There is a lesson here that I keep relearning.
You can take enormous things on the chin. You can accept the wheelchair, manage the diapers with whatever dignity the situation allows, absorb a prognosis that most people could not hear without collapsing. And then a pair of trousers finds the one crack in the wall, and everything pours through it.
Out of all proportion. Completely real.
For every action there is a counter-reaction. The weight is climbing, and it touches everything: mobility, mood, medical risk, the image I carry of myself. I know that. Knowing it did not stop this morning from happening.
The table survived. So did I.
We all have our triggers. Pain is not mine. Apparently, pants are.
