None of Your Damn Business

This November weather puts a frown on my face. The colder it gets, the more I hurt. The wetter it gets, the more I hurt.  I've had a few too many days/weeks recently where I have had to use my cane to get around.  This has prompted a lot of meddling into my business by total strangers. "Ooooo, what happened to you?" or that wrinkled brow, tilted head and strained smile of pity.  For those who ask what happened I try to be polite and not say what I feel like saying (see this post's title), and at the same time not go into a complete medical history by waving my hand in the air, as if to swat away their question, keep moving forward, and saying: "Oh, you know....." I understand that folks have good intentions and all.  But people don't get the point, and keep on with their questions.  They don't really want to know. I don't really want to tell them. "Well you see, I have Crohn's. What is that? Well, it's an autoimmune inflammatory thing. What does that mean? Well, even though it's an inflammatory bowel disease, it causes other parts of my body to be inflamed from time to time...blah blah blah."  Thanks but no thanks.

 

For those non strangers (acquaintances, colleagues) who may not be intimately familiar with my health history, but who have seen me zooming around looking perfectly fine, then one day showing up with a cane, I understand their questioning concern, but in the end, they too don't really want to know, nor do I feel like launching into the whole deal with them either. So I usually end up doing the same thing:

 

"Oh, its just one of those days...."

And if they push on, "Well did you hurt yourself?"

"No, I just have some health issues, I'll be fine." 

"Well, what's wrong?"

"It's a long story"

"Were you in an accident? Did you fall down?"

 

And then there are the people who DO know my health history inside and out, but I ALSO don't want to go into a whole rant with them, because once again, who REALLY wants to hear your long convoluted story of pain? I mean, most days that I'm not feeling well, usually its not solely one thing that's bothering me.  It is almost always some combo of symptoms and reasons for those symptoms.  I can't usually just say, "oh X is flaring up today." 

 

So, I have come up up with a new, one word term for what ails me: Itisitis.  Pretty much all of my problems stem from inflammation of some sort, hence the term. Tendonitis, bursitis, Crohn's with colitis, bulging discs, pluracy, inflammation of my soul..... all itis's.  So, if you know me and you read this, and you ask what's going on, I can now simply say: "oh, it's just my itisitis", and happily go about my day. Isn't that nice?  And if a stranger asks, I can say the same thing, and hope that confuses them enough for me to be able to hobble away without having to field any more queries.