Having PKD has some very serious implications, yet, there are things about it that just gets my sense of humor started…
Like washing up this morning and looking down and noticing that, shit – I can’t see my feet. I can barely see my dick (thanks, Dad, for your contribution to the size of my dick) but, yeah, shit, I can’t see my feet anymore without kinda bending over.
Two things. The first was me “remembering” that since this damned bloating really got going, I haven’t been able to look straight down and see my feet for a while now. The second was that I found this to be quite hilarious.
I look like I have a beer belly or, as I sometimes think, I look quite pregnant and being a bi guy who has been screwed by other guys, you might be able to appreciate why I find this to be hilarious. I’m looking straight down and trying to look past my belly and laughing to myself because I can’t see my feet because I look like I’m like three or four months pregnant.
And sometimes, I feel like I am. My lady insists that there’s no way I can really know what that feels like since, um, I am a guy but there’s a feeling of… fullness and something is definitely growing in there but I have learned to find the humor in situations that, soberly, aren’t all that funny… and having kidney disease is seriously not funny or humorous in any way.
I had bent over a little to “make sure my tootsies” were still there… and that slight movement had my oversized kidneys letting me know that they didn’t like that. I felt as if I’d been rabbit punched in both kidneys at the same time and my lower back sent a message that said, “Don’t do that again!”
Yeah. That. I know that at this point in things, there’s nothing I can do about it… but I can laugh at it because that’s way better than being morose about it. The back pain is no joke and I get to laugh at and to myself when it gets kinda bad… and I’m walking around holding my back and just like I’ve seen pregnant women do and, yeah, sometimes, I catch myself waddling and, yeah, it’s pretty funny with that above-mentioned thing being considered.
As I was walking, waddling and holding my back going to the kitchen (and even leaning back as I’ve seen pregnant women do), I’m grinning like an idiot and laughing to myself because this is really funny to “notice” that I can’t see my feet when I look straight down. I’m walking around naked and trying not to bust out laughing; it’s bad enough that my lady thinks I’m crazy to begin with so there’s no need for me to do something that keeps proving that I might need a straight jacket. I get some underwear out of the drawer and it’s getting funnier because bending over is… a problem Now, it’s bad enough that my stroke left me with right-side deficits and having a hard time lifting my right leg… but now my belly is in the way.
And, no, sitting down to do something so mundane and routine doesn’t help. My back is pitching a bitch because I’m bending over to get my poor right foot in there, then still bent over to get my left foot in there and laughing to myself over the fact that I actually have to look at what I’m doing… because my belly’s in the way. I get my underwear on, slap on some deodorant and now I’m in my T-shirt drawer and looking for the large sized ones I had to get because the medium sized ones – and the size I normally wore before this became a problem – don’t fit right and just thinking about how those T-shirts look on me had me giggling to myself…
Because it’s pretty funny. If I put one of them on, well, let’s just say it doesn’t cover things like they used to and the bad part is that the large ones want to start crawling up my belly when I’m sitting or lying down. It’s pretty annoying, to be honest, but I’d rather laugh about it than to be all depressed or whatever over stuff like this and because of something I can’t do anything about. It just is what it is. Although, not being able to see my feet did take me back in time to a moment where I was talking to my poly wife about whether or not I thought her belly was too… poochy for the top she was going to wear and I had asked her to “kill me” if I ever got one of those bellies that hung over my waist and could hide the fact that I’m wearing a belt.
And… I have one of those bellies now. Karma, I’d suppose but remembering that moment in time had me laughing. I’m finding that living with PKD isn’t totally about what it means to have it and how bad it can get: It’s also about not stressing over any of it since, again, there’s not a lot you can do about it. Like, given all the water I have to drink, I slosh at times. It doesn’t feel good but it’s also funny, too, and that’s the thing that I know I should pay more attention than what having this is giving me problems with… like not being able to see my feet or having to look in the mirror when I’m trimming down my pubic hair which isn’t all that different from when I shave… except, before this aspect of PKD hit me, I could look right down at my crotch without anything hindering the view.
Hey, at least I can see my dick! Yeah, being a guy means that being able to see it and “make sure” it’s really still there very damned important and I just crack myself up to find myself actually looking for it when I have to pee. Just frigging hilarious and it has to be because the alternative – being depressed about something that’s really trivial – isn’t a place I want to be in and, besides, I already have enough shit to be depressed about thanks to the stroke which, by the way, doesn’t depress me so no worries about that.
I’ve been writing this and chuckling to myself. Just a few minutes ago, I’m in the kitchen and dumping rice into the pot and talking to my lady; we both walk out of the kitchen… and we both grab our backs in the exact same way and were arching backward at the same time… and it was all I could do not to bust out laughing.
Sigh. This hasn’t gotten seriously serious for me and I hold out the hope that it won’t get that serious but when someone learns that they have PKD and wondering what to do and all that, I would readily suggest to find the humor in it even though it’s not funny. Because getting seriously down in the dumps about it isn’t a good thing to do or a good place to be. Do whatever the doctors tell you to do; for me, again, it’s drink water. A whole lot of water. I’m guzzling water like a very thirsty camel and that image alone gets me to smiling and taking my mind away from the fact that I hate drinking boring-assed water. I’m going to probably have to replace all of my T-shirts and get a size that will keep the damned things from crawling up my belly and negating me having to keep pulling it down and that often means unzipping my onesie and looking hilarious trying to get it back in place.
Or having a good time laughing over the fact that I can’t see my feet because my belly looks like I’m pregnant and that gets me giggling because I don’t know who the daddy is… or when I got knocked up to begin with… and picking with my lady and blaming her for my “pregnancy.” The looks she gives me makes me laugh and, yeah – being able to find this funny, again, is way better than the alternative.
In lieu of there being medications to help with this, laughter does become the best medicine.