Option A. Find a bathroom Option B. Shit my pants

This is a little story for my fellow crohnies. As some of you may know I have crohns disease. You can Google it, but pretty much if we were playing Oregon Trail, I would be the one dying of dysentery first. You get the idea. If you don’t know what Oregon Trail is, then you had a deprived childhood.

It had been kind of a long day and I needed to get some exercise. I was going to go biking, but I have had a cold and sometimes I push it too hard on the bike, so I decided to run instead. I don’t really love running, so I was unconcerned that I would attempt to push it too hard. I mean let’s be serious here. Anyways, about 3 miles out I got that little feeling like “oh hey, I might need to hit up a bathroom sometime in the nearish future.” For normal people this is not generally an issue. For a person with crohns this is a more time sensitive concern. 

I hit my turn around point and was feeling pretty good. The stomach was a little rumbly, but I was confident I would make it the 3 miles back to my house. After about a half mile I started to view bushes and hedges as possible shitting locations. I quickly realized that the remainder of this run was probably not going to happen without some sort of uncomfortable situation. I was fairly certain there was a park at the next path, road intersection and started to pray that there may be bathroom facilities there. That was still a half mile away though and I was seriously questioning that I could make it that far. I continued to jog until the park was in view and there did appear to be a bathroom facility of sorts. It was less than a quarter mile away, but at that point I had gone into self talk, deep breathing mode. One step at a time. You can do this. It’s not that far. You are NOT going to shit your pants right here!

I finally made it there. As I reached for the door, panic swept over me and for a split second I freaked out. What if the door is locked?  Closed after six? Some sick joke the universe was about to play on me to kill all my hopes and dreams of simply using a toilet instead of a bush or my shorts. The panic was also brought on by the fact that I had about 3 seconds before all hell would break loose in front of families playing baseball. To say I was relieved when the door was indeed unlocked would be a vast understatement.

I had made it! Life was good! Possible pants shitting situation had been averted. Though this all took place in maybe a 10 minute time lapse, I promise you it felt like an hour. So next time you are out running or biking and your feeling kind of tired or unmotivated, just be happy you don't also feel the need to shit your pants.