The Diaper Problem

Hey all, it's Aloha, Author of High Quad Stories.  This isn't meant to be a long, multi-part story, but I did write a few more parts to this.  However, since it doesn't look like there are currently any days available, I don't know if I'm going to be able to post any more of this one, but I'll at least put this part up for now.  It's a little uncomfortable, so I'm not sure if many people will even enjoy it. I won't be offended if you don't, lol.

The Diaper Problem

It all started during dinner with the Rosenthals.

It was something that Cathy and I had been looking forward to for weeks.  We met Dave and Michelle Rosenthal at the orientation for Leo’s daycare, and we’d hit it off.  Okay, we sort of hit it off.  Dave and I chatted about the baseball game that weekend, and Michelle and Cathy talked about potty training or bras or whatever the hell women talk about.  When we left the orientation, Michelle said to us, “We’ll all have to get together for dinner sometime!”

I told Cathy that they didn’t really mean it.  Of course they didn’t. They didn’t actually want to be friends with us.  We’re not the kind of couple who has friends—not in any real sort of way.  I make people feel awkward, and the conversations are always stilted with big phony smiles, and patronizing nods.  And wondering when the soonest they could leave would be without it being outright rude.

The Diaper Problem, Part 2

I’ve had a delay with my most recent freelance web design project and I need to let the people who hired me know about it.  I’ve got my headphones on my head with the mouthpiece next to my lips, and I dictate the letter using Dragon Naturally Speaking.  What I would like the letter to say is:

Dear Jeff,

I’ve been hard at work on the changes you wanted me to make on your website, but I’ll need a few extra days.  I should have everything done by Friday. 

Thanks,

Jamie

Here’s what it actually says:

Dear Jeff,
I've been hard at work on the change if you want to been awake on your website, but I'll need a few extra days. I should have everything done by Friday.
Thanks,
Jamie

Close, but nonsensical.  I need to change the first sentence that I dictated so it actually makes sense.  Probably the vast majority of people who use this program can simply highlight the part they want to fix and type in the changes, but I can’t.  I have to do everything using voice commands.  And while Dragon isn’t a bad program, it’s far from perfect.

“Correct ‘if you want to been awake,’” I say.

It highlights the phrase, then offers me some choices for other things it thinks I might have said.  The second option is correct.

“Select two,” I say.

Now what the program is supposed to do is insert the second phrase into my text.  But instead, it writes “select two” in place of the sentence.  So now the sentence reads: “I've been hard at work on the change select two on your website, but I'll need a few extra days.”

Fuck.

I want my emails to sound professional.  Jeff has hired me on several jobs so far and I want him to keep hiring me.  Also, he’s not going to be understanding about me being a quadriplegic, because he doesn’t know I’m a quadriplegic.  He has no idea.  None of the people who hire me know that I’m disabled.  Why should they?

I try again.  “Select ‘select two,’” I say.

Dragon doesn’t like this command.  It’s spinning its wheels, trying to figure it out.  It would be so much easier if I could just reach down and correct those few letters with my keyboard.  But I can’t.

And then the damn computer is frozen.

If Cathy were here, I’d ask her to do a hard restart for me.  But unfortunately, I’m alone.  I’m not alone often, but it’s sometimes a necessity.  My morning caregiver leaves around 9:30 and my mother will come to help me at lunch at eleven.  So that’s an hour and a half gap where I’m alone.  I have the PCA set me up at my computer, and we all just hope I won’t need anything until eleven.  Which I usually don’t.

It’s just past ten now, which means my mother won’t be coming over to help me for almost an hour.  So that means I have to restart the computer myself.  Fortunately, in the front pocket of my T-shirt, my PCA has placed a stick with a mouthpiece that I can use to do the hard reset myself.

I bend my head forward as far as it will go, and grasp the mouthpiece between my teeth.  When I’m certain that I’m grasping it securely, I carefully pull it out of my pocket.  I then lean forward as far as I can, reaching for the power button on the computer with the point of the stick.  I hit it.

Not hard enough.

I lean forward further.  The belt across my chest keeps me from going too far, which is probably a good thing considering it’s the only thing keeping me from falling forward in my chair and not being able to get back up.  But I only get a few more millimeters of distance.  I press as hard as I can and in the process, the mouthpiece slips from my lips.

I watch in horror as the stick falls from my mouth and clatters onto the desk in front of me.  Then it just lies there. 

It’s so close.  It’s right in front of me, six inches from my fingers.  But it might as well be in Mars.  I can’t reach that stick.  There’s no acrobatics I can do that will get me that stick, short of telekinesis.  I’m fucked.

Well, so much for writing a letter to Jeff.  I guess I’ll do it when my mother comes.

I figure I’ll watch television in the living room until she gets here.  Cathy set up one of those Alexa systems that I can control with my voice, so it’s pretty foolproof.  It can be frustrating at times, like everything else, but I’m better off now than if I’d been a quad twenty years ago.

I lean my head back, shaking it until the headset falls off and lies around my shoulders.  It’s still plugged in to the computer, but if I back up quick, it will yank the cord out.  I’ve done it before—it will be fine. 

I lean forward to bring the mouth controls for my chair closer to my lips, but then I realize something else horrifying.  When my PCA put my headset on, she twisted my sip and puff controls all the way to the side.  They are too far away for my lips to reach them.

I want to kill her.  She knew I was going to be alone here for over an hour.  How could she not make sure my controls were within reach?

But really, it’s my fault.  I should have checked.

This is fucking depressing. I can’t help but feel the true extent of my limitations when I’m staring at my wheelchair controls six inches away from my face and unable to reach them.  Independent with mobility?  Sure, if somebody doesn’t move my goddamn control just a couple of inches away from me. 

So now I’m stuck here, staring at the frozen computer screen for the next hour.  Thank God it’s no more than an hour.  I’d been telling Cathy that it was fine for her to leave me alone for two or three hours, acting like a big shot.  But it’s clear that even an hour is probably too long for me to be entirely alone.

It sucks.  I’m in my mid-thirties, an adult, and I feel like I should be able to stay on my own.  But it’s clear that it’s not realistic.  I’m not sure how we’re supposed to fill in the gaps though.  There’s a teenage girl who lives two blocks down who stayed with me for three hours a day last summer—she fed me lunch and helped me with whatever I needed.  It wasn’t a bad situation—she was a nice enough girl and she didn’t charge too much.  She didn’t help me with any personal stuff back then, but she told Cathy that she was thinking about nursing school and might be willing to get trained in some aspects of my personal care next summer.  At the very least, she could learn to empty my leg bag.

Sure, it was a little awkward to hear her refer to me on the phone as “the disabled guy I babysit for.”  But that was a small thing.

Cathy wants me to spend a couple of days a week at an adult day program.  Those programs are really for old people with dementia, but there’s a local one that does take people with severe disabilities who can’t be left alone during the day.  They wouldn’t be able to provide any physical care, but they told us that it would probably be a good exercise for the other residents to feed me and help me with other things.  But I nixed the idea, partially because I do work during the day and this would keep me from my computer, and also because I hated the idea of being in what is essentially day care for adults.

Eleven o’clock rolls around and I start to get panicky.  Where’s my mother?  She’s usually on time.  I make one last ditch reach to try to bring my wheelchair controls close enough to use, but it’s hopeless.  I’m stuck until she gets here.

Five minutes later, I hear the lock turning and blow out a sigh of relief.  Mom strolls into the house, and immediately ruffles my hair, even though she knows I hate that.

“Everything okay, Jamie?” she asks.

“Can you move my controls?” I ask her, before even explaining about the computer.

“Oh, dear,” Mom murmurs.  She brings the controls to my lips and I’m flooded with relief.  I’ve got my mobility back.  I move away from the computer and immediately do a weight shift backward.  I’ve been in the same position way too long and I don’t want to get a sore.

My mother restarts the computer with one button press, then feels my leg bag to make sure it doesn’t need to be changed.  She doesn’t even ask anymore—she just grabs it.  “Your diaper is clean?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. 

“Should I check?”

Her checking would involve unstrapping me from my chair, then leaning me forward to get a peek inside.  But the truth is, I can tell when it needs to be changed by the smell.

“No, it’s fine.”

Mom smiles. “Let’s make lunch then.”

Since the computer is busy rebooting, I follow my mother to the kitchen where she prepares my lunch.  Whatever it’s going to be will be something low fat and low calorie.  Right after my injury, I lost a bunch of weight and couldn’t seem to gain it back.  That trend continued for several years.  But lately—I’m not sure if it’s just that I’m getting into my mid-thirties and my metabolism stinks, but I’ve been gaining weight.  Too much weight.

As a quad, I really can’t risk being overweight.  It will put me at risk for skin breakdown and make it harder to do my care.  But on the other hand, I can’t exactly go to the gym and work off the extra weight.  So my only option is to diet.

So far, I’m not sure it’s working. Ever since I lost the muscles in my trunk, my belly has jutted out, but I was never fat exactly.  But now my gut has definitely packed on some extra weight, to the point where my pants that have buttons don’t button anymore.  And the sweatpants leave behind a scary indentation.  Cathy had to buy me all new pants.  And my shirts all stretch over my belly.

On the plus side, at least my face has filled in again and doesn’t look so skeletal anymore.

“How long do you need me to stay with you?” Mom asks me as she starts chopping lettuce.

“Cathy is coming back at two,” I say.  “We’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”

She raises her eyebrows.  “Everything okay?”

I haven’t told my mother about my new mission.  I know she’d say I’m being ridiculous or vain.  She sees nothing wrong with the fact that I need diapers.  She can’t figure out why it bothers me.

“Just a check-up,” I say. 

I’ll tell her when it works.

My lunch turns out to be a salad with low fat dressing.  It’s fine.  I like salad, and I definitely want to work on this weight issue.  Mom puts the salad bowl down in front of me, spears some lettuce with a fork, and holds it out for me to eat.  Of all the people who feed me regularly, my mother is actually my preference.  She’s very patient.  My father is the worst at it.  Well, technically, Leo is the worst at it, but of the adults, Dad is worst.  He won’t wait for me to finish one bite before he’s got the next ready, and he doesn’t like waiting.  I end up wearing a lot of my meal, which Leo thinks is hilarious.  Daddy, you need a bib.

Yes, that’s just what I need in my life.  A fucking bib.

As Mom feeds me, I focus on my doctor’s appointment. This could potentially change my life.  I just hope Cathy is open to what the doctor has to say.

To be continued...

The Diaper Problem, Part 3

Dr. Clark is the local specialist in spinal cord injury and I’ve been seeing him since the month I got out of rehab.  Usually when I roll into a room, I’m the only guy in a wheelchair, but in Dr. Clark’s waiting room, I’m never alone (although to be fair, I’m usually the most disabled guy even there). When Cathy and I enter the waiting room today, I recognize one of my buddies from rehab, Tony.  Tony is about five years younger than me and got hurt riding an ATV. 

Looking at Tony makes me feel like I’m looking into a mirror.  He’s got the same skinny arms and legs strapped down to his chair, and I can see he’s also put on some weight in the midsection region.  He’s even got an identical strap across his chest.  It’s almost hard to look at him, because of how severely impaired he looks—if that’s how I look, it’s no surprise Cathy and I have been having trouble making friends.  His mother, who I recall became his caregiver after he was discharged from rehab, is accompanying him and she looks as exhausted as Cathy probably looks.

One thing that’s new on Tony that surprises me is the trach jutting out of his throat, tied around his neck with a blue cushion.  Both of us had trachs in rehab, but we both managed to get them out.  Somehow Tony’s has reappeared, although I can see the red cap on top of it, indicating he’s not actively using it.

“Hey, Jamie,” Tony calls to me as I pull up my wheelchair beside his.  There isn’t a lot of room and I knock into him slightly, jolting both of our bodies. 

“Hey, Tony,” I say.  “Long time no see.  What’s going on?”

“Notice my new addition?” Tony wags his eyebrows at me. 

“Oh my gosh!” Cathy exclaims.  “What happened?”

“He got pneumonia last year,” Tony’s mother explains to us as she touches her son’s shoulder gently.  “It was touch and go for a while.  He recovered, but they weren’t able to entirely wean him off the trach.”

“She puts me on the vent only at night,” Tony tells me.  “During the day, I’m fine.”

“Usually,” his mother adds.

I shiver slightly.  I hated having that stupid trach and it’s unsettling to think that I’m one pneumonia bout away from getting it back. 

“What are you here for?” Tony asks me.

“Just a check-up,” I lie.

Tony and I never confided in each other about that sort of stuff, although maybe we should have.  I’m sure he has a suprapubic catheter like I have, or something like that.  I’m sure his mother is trained to help him evacuate his bowels, the way Cathy is.  He knows what it’s like to have someone helping you with something so personal.  He’d get it.

I cast a quick glance at his groin area, wondering if I detect a bulge of a diaper.  Tony wouldn’t have told me if he had to wear one, and I never told him. But there was one time when I very obviously shit myself during a group therapy session, to the point where someone had to immediately take me away to be changed.  Later, Tony caught up with me and said, “Don’t feel bad—it happens to all of us.”

Maybe I should have done a better job keeping in touch with Tony and the other guys from rehab.  But it just brought back too many bad memories. 

I wonder if Tony is thinking the same thing, because he says to me, “You and Cathy should come by for dinner sometime.”

“We wouldn’t want to impose,” Cathy says to his mother.

“Not at all,” she says quickly.  “We would love to have you over.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “If I can squeeze you into my social calendar.  It’s pretty much nonstop dates these days.”

He laughs at himself, and for the millionth time, I feel incredibly grateful to have Cathy.  If I’d been single at the time of my injury, like Tony was, I’d probably be living with my parents the same way he is, and I can’t begin to imagine how I’d meet women. Well, I wouldn’t.

A nurse calls our name and we follow her to the examining room.  Once we’re safe inside the room with the door closed, she says, “This is about a bowel-related issue?”

I nod, not really wanting to provide details more times than I have to.

“We’d like you to transfer to the examining table then,” she tells me.

I look at the examining table then back at the nurse.  “That’s not going to happen.”

“Dr. Clark will want to perform a rectal exam,” she tells me.  She frowns.  “We can find a staff member to help with the transfer.”

“That sounds fine,” Cathy says before I can protest again.

A male nurse comes in to assist Cathy in transferring me to the examining table.  When I see the muscles in his arms, I at least feel comfortable that he’s going to be able to transfer me without any difficulty. Cathy undoes all my straps, and immediately my body tilts to the right due to my complete lack of trunk control.  The nurse leans me against his chest, grabs me by my pants and shifts me over to the table in one swift movement.  Then Cathy gets behind me to help ease my body down onto the table. 

“Wow, you’re good at that,” Cathy tells the nurse.

“It gets me a good workout,” he laughs as he flexes his biceps. I try my best not to be pissed off that this guy is flirting with my wife while showing off his muscles.

“Should I get him undressed?” Cathy asks him.

He looks me over.  “From the waist-down.”

So while we’re waiting for Dr. Clark, Cathy takes off my sweatpants and shoes.  I’m left in my T-shirt and diaper, and I can’t help but wish they’d given us a sheet to cover me with.  Wouldn’t that have been a reasonable thing to do for my privacy?  But fuck it.  Nobody seems to give a shit about my privacy anymore.

Cathy shifts the head of the examining table up just in time for Dr. Clark to enter the room.  So I’m able to look at the doctor instead of staring up at the ceiling.

To my horror though, he isn’t alone.

“Hi, Jamie, Cathy,” Dr. Clark says to me. “This is a medical student who’s been shadowing me.  Her name is Maddie.”

Maddie is twenty-something with a pert little nose and blond hair tied back in a ponytail.  She’s really cute, and absolutely the last person I want to discuss this around.  On her part, she seems incredibly uncomfortable to have walked in on me half-naked.

“Jamie has a C3 complete spinal cord injury,” Dr. Clark tells Maddie.  “He has no movement or sensation below his shoulders. One thing we do for him here is work on issues with his bowel and bladder program.”  He smiles at me.  “Jamie, would you mind if I showed Maddie your suprapubic catheter?”

Yeah, I do mind.  But what the hell.  It’s not like I’ll ever see this girl again.  “Sure.”

The tube is already jutting out of my diaper, but Dr. Clark tugs down the diaper to show where it enters my abdomen.  There are several drops of piss hovering in the tubing, and they shift and make their way down to my leg bag as he moves the tube.

“A suprapubic catheter is a better option than a Foley catheter that goes through the penis,” Dr. Clark explains to Maddie, “because it decreases the risk of infection.”

Maddie nods solemnly.

“Now, Jamie,” Dr. Clark says, “Cathy says that you’ve been unsatisfied with your bowel program.  That you’d like to try to eliminate the accidents.  Now, how often do you have accidents.”

I glance at Maddie. “Once a week.”

Cathy snorts.  “No, more like three times a week.”

That’s… okay, it might be true.

“You’re using magic bullet daily now?” he asks me. 

I nod.

“Magic bullet is a suppository that stimulates a bowel movement,” Dr. Clark tells Maddie.  “Cathy inserts it and then they wait for him to get emptied out.  I looked through the documentation, and it looks like we’ve tried quite a few things before arriving at this particular bowel program.”

“But it doesn’t work,” I say.  “Obviously.”

“One issue that we’re facing is that you don’t have a lot of rectal tone,” he says.  “Or at least, you didn’t last time.  We’d like to test you again.”

I know what that means.

Cathy rolls me onto my side in anticipation of a rectal exam.  She does it by rolling my right leg over my left, then putting my right arm across my body, then slides me over onto my side.  I hear Dr. Clark undoing the Velcro on my diaper and pulling it down to do a rectal exam.  I hold my breath.

“No change from last time,” he announces.

Damn it.

“Jamie,” he says, “would you be okay with Maddie taking a feel?  I’m trying to teach her about rectal tone.”

Jesus Christ, absolutely not.

“Sure,” I mumble.

Maddie uncertain shadow hovers over me as I hear her gloves snapping into place.  I can’t feel what she’s doing, but I hear her gasp followed by a familiar smell and I know exactly what just happened.

“Oh my God, he…” she manages.

“It’s okay, I’ll get him cleaned up,” Cathy says quickly.

I’m afraid to know how badly I shit the examining table.  It takes about ten minutes before everything gets cleaned up, and Dr. Clark excuses himself in the meantime.  When he returns, I’m in a fresh diaper and Maddie is conspicuously absent.

“After reviewing your records and feeling your rectal tone,” Dr. Clark says, “I’d say that the chance of maintaining bowel continence is extremely small.”

Great.  So I really am stuck with the diaper forever.

“However,” he continues, “there are surgical options available to you.”

Cathy frowns. “Surgical options?”

Dr. Clark nods. “Some of my patient who have had difficulty with wound management in the sacral area have had diverting colostomies.  That way they don’t have to worry about incontinence.”

“A colostomy?” I blurt out.  “You mean I’d have a bag on my belly?”

He nods again.  “As I said, it’s not a terrible option.  It would involve a significant abdominal surgery, but it would be a simpler way to manage your bowel.  Your stool would collect in a bag and you’d just have to have the bag emptied periodically, which would be easier than cleaning up an episode of incontinence.”

I don’t know what to say to that.  As much as I hate wearing a diaper, I don’t know if having a bag of shit on my belly at all times would be preferable to that.  I imagine Cathy and I having sex and her having to look down at that bag while we’re doing it.  That can’t be sexy.

Plus the idea of going through a surgery is scary.  I’ve been hospitalized a couple of times for urinary tract infections since my injury, and I hated it.  I spent most of the time stuck in bed, relying on the slowest nurses on the planet for all my needs.  And what if after I was intubated for the surgery, they couldn’t get me off the ventilator and I ended up like Tony?

“I need to think about it,” I say.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Cathy says.

Dr. Clark shrugs.  “Jamie, your wife is the one who does your bowel program.  Is this is her preference, I’d say you don’t have a problem.”

I bite my tongue, not wanting to tell the doctor about my son’s horrible proclamation the night the Rosenthals came for dinner.  About how my baby was getting out of diapers and I wanted to do the same.  I know he’d tell me I’m being ridiculous, and he’d be right. 

But I can’t help but think that maybe the colostomy isn’t the worst idea.

To be continued....

The Diaper Problem, Part 4

Cathy’s cousin’s daughter is being baptized today and we have to go.

I would give anything to not have to go to this, but Cathy insists.  She’s let me out of the last few events for her family, and she says I’ve got to go to this one.  Leo, the lucky bugger, gets to stay home—my mom is going to be watching him.  Which is a damn good thing because Cathy is going to have to focus all her energy on me today.

The problem is that the baptism is in a church that is blatantly non-accessible.  We’ve been informed there are five steps to enter.  “With a railing,” they told us, as if that would help in the slightest.  I don’t do stairs, obviously.  So for me to have to go to this baptism, I need to be in my manual chair so that I can be lifted up those five steps.  Monstro-chair is not liftable.

Cathy dresses me in a nice white shirt that I’ve owned since before my injury, which means it stretches far too much over my gut.  She puts on my dress pants while I’m in bed, and I can hear her grunting with effort.

“These don’t close, Jamie,” she says.

“Where are my new pants?  I thought you got new ones that were bigger.”

“These are the new ones.”

What the fuck?  Has my gut really gotten so big that even the bigger pants don’t fit anymore?  So much for my diet. 

Cathy huffs in frustration.  “I’m going to leave the button open.”

“Don’t do that!” I say.  “Cathy, people are going to see my…”

“It’s fine,” she says.  “We’ll just leave your shirt untucked.  Nobody will see anything.  I promise.”

I really, really don’t want to go to this baptism.

When Cathy gets me into my manual wheelchair, my independence with mobility goes right out the window.  There’s nothing I can do to control this chair—I have to rely entirely on other people to push me.  But there are times when it’s useful to not have my power wheelchair, so like everything else, I’m stuck with it.

Cathy pushes me into the living room, where my mother is reading to Leo.  She smiles when she sees us.  “Don’t the two of you look nice!”

Cathy really does look nice.  She’s wearing this red dress that falls just above her knees and shows off her curvy legs and nice rack.  I feel a flash of pride that this pretty woman is my wife.  I’m lucky in that way.

Leo sees me in the manual chair and his eyes light up.  “I want to push Daddy!” he yelps.

He’s way too short to actually push me, but he gets behind my chair and actually does push me about a foot, which is better than I could do on my own.  Everyone laughs, and then Cathy has to rearrange my arms on my lap, because one slipped between the armrest and my thigh. Unlike in my power wheelchair, my arms can’t be strapped to the armrests of this chair, so we just keep them in my lap.  I do have a strap across my chest and my legs, but I don’t feel nearly as secure in this chair.  I always feel like I’m slipping down.

The other thing about this manual chair that’s annoying is that there’s no headrest.  When I first got my power wheelchair, I was reluctant to have a headrest because I believed it made me look more impaired.  (I know…. how could I look more impaired than a guy who can’t move his arms or legs?  Still.)  But my therapist told me I’d be grateful to have that headrest and I am.  Without it, my neck aches and I tend to let my head droop downward and to the side. 

Cathy loads me into the van and we drive to the church, which is only about twenty minutes away.  When we get there, I see that it’s going to be a full house at the baptism.  I hate crowds.

With my sip and puff chair, I can get in and out of the van on my own after Cathy lowers the lift, but she has to manually push me in and out when I’m in this stupid manual wheelchair.  I can see people staring at us, but nobody offers to help.

Once we’re out of the van, Cathy pushes me in the direction of the stairs.  The side wall of the church is reflective and I catch a glimpse of Cathy pushing me. I knew I shouldn’t have looked, but once I do, I can’t take it back.  Cathy looks gorgeous, of course, but me… Christ, it’s hard to look at myself in a mirror.  I look so ridiculously impaired.  First off, I was right about the straps not holding me securely—the one across my chest is keeping me up in the chair as the rest of my body slumps down, demonstrating that I’m clearly not able to sit up on my own.  My arms bounce lifelessly with each crack in the pavement and my right one is sliding into that gap between the armrest and my thigh. My legs are crooked in the legrests, something I didn’t notice when we were at home. And my gut—holy shit, how did I get the belly of a middle-aged drunk?  I’m only 35 and I hardly drink at all.

  I can’t let this get to me though.  Cathy seems to like me, in spite of my physical imperfections.  I mean, I’m severely disabled and so I look it.  No surprises there.

When we get to the stairs in front of the church, Cathy turns my chair around and tilts me backwards slightly in anticipation of bumping me up the stairs.  I brace myself, ready for the first step, when I hear the voice:

“Cathy!  Is that really you?”

Cathy lets go of me too quickly, causing my arms to bounce violently.  My knee shakes with a muscle spasm that thankfully quickly stops on its own.

“Andy!  Oh my God!  It’s been so long!”

I look at the guy, this Andy.  He’s tall with sand-colored hair and an easy smile.  He doesn’t look particularly remarkable, but he’s definitely not a quadriplegic, so he’s got that going for him.

Please let him be a relative.

“Andy, this is my husband, Jamie,” she says to him.  “Andy used to be best friends with my cousin Luke.”

So he’s not a relative.  I see his eyes lower as he looks me over, trying to figure the whole thing out.  Good luck, Andy.  I can’t figure it out half the time.

“Nice to meet you, Jamie.”  And of course, Andy sticks out his hand.  I nod at it, which is what I usually do when someone does something dumb like that to me.  He withdraws his hand awkwardly.

“We’re trying to get up the stairs,” Cathy explains, gesturing at the five steps to get into the church.

“Hey, let me help with that!” Andy, the boy scout, volunteers.

It ends up that he grabs the tail end of my chair and Cathy holds the handles, and they lift me up over the steps fairly easily.  Much easier than Cathy could do it all on her own.  So in that way, he was helpful, although I’m not thrilled about the way he’s flirting with my wife.

Cathy pushes me into the church, and all the while, Andy keeps chatting with her.  He’s pretending like I don’t even exist—maybe he thinks I have cognitive problems, which is unfortunately not an uncommon assumption. I want to try to say something to let him know in no uncertain terms that I’m not retarded and that I do not appreciate what he’s doing with my wife.  But somehow, I can’t think of what to say and I feel so fucking awkward about this entire situation that I just decide to keep quiet.

“I don’t think we can put the wheelchair in the aisle,” Cathy says, looking around the inside of the small church.  “Is the back okay?”

It’s a hell of a lot better than the front.  “Yeah, sure.”

Cathy parks my chair behind the last aisle of benches, and she and Andy sit in the row right in front of me.  I realize my arms are not in great positions—my right arm has slipped again into the gap between my thigh and the armrest, and my left arm is between my legs, practically touching my crotch.  But I don’t really want to get Cathy’s attention and have to ask her to move my arms for me, so I just try not to let it bother me.

The ceremony starts and most people quiet down, but not Cathy and Andy.  They keep talking through the whole thing—not that I can blame them because it’s pretty boring.  Still, I hate this.  I hate the way Cathy laughs when Andy make a joke.  I hate how she just touched his arm.  What the fuck?  Why is she touching his arm?

I strain my ears, trying to make out their conversation.  I can only hear bits and pieces, but my ears perk up when I hear my own name.

“Jamie, you said his name was…?” Andy is asking.

“Yes,” Cathy says.  “We’ve been together just after college, and we got married about seven years ago.”

“And the whole time, he’s…?”

“Oh no!” She laughs at this, although I don’t really get why it’s funny. “He was injured in a car accident five years ago.”

“Wow, that’s rough.”

“Yes, it can be… difficult.”

“You’re such a wonderful person to stick around after something like that.”

“Oh, well… I don’t know if…”

“A lot of women wouldn’t, I bet.”

“Yes.” She sounds thoughtful.  Or maybe sad.  “That’s true.”

Andy says something else I can’t make out, even though I’m desperately trying.  Then they stop talking, except when Andy cracks a joke and Cathy throws back her head and giggles.  When is the last time I made her laugh like that?  I can’t even remember.

Eventually, I get distracted by my position in my wheelchair. The manual wheelchair really is not supportive enough of my body, and right now, I’m sliding to the right.  Both my knees have swung to the right side, and my upper body is tilted to the right. And my head is really tilting to the right too. I know I probably am not going to fall, but it’s not that comfortable, plus I’m sure it looks really weird.  I can’t adjust myself though—I need Cathy to do that.  And she’s too distracted by the ceremony and Andy.  I’ll just have to wait.

By the time the ceremony ends, I’ve tilted enough to the right than Cathy immediately notices it when she stands up.  She runs over to me.  “Jesus, Jamie, let me get you straightened out.”

She pulls me under my arms into a better position then arranges my arms for me.  Andy watches the whole thing, smiling benevolently at me.  I want to punch him in the face.

“Let me help you get him down the stairs again,” Andy says to her.

“That would be great,” Cathy says gratefully.

They repeat the same process from earlier in reverse.  I can’t wait to get out of here, but as soon as I’m on the ground, Andy and Cathy just stare at each other.  It’s making me sick.

“Are you going to the reception?” he asks her.

“No,” I speak up before Cathy can answer.  “We weren’t planning to.”

No fucking way I’m going to that reception.

Andy looks surprised to hear me talk, but he pushes forward anyway.  “That’s a shame.”

Cathy glances at me, then smiles apologetically at him.  “Well, it’s been a long day.”

“Listen,” Andy says to her, “I’d love to catch up with you more.  Do you want to grab lunch sometime?”

No.  That fucker is not asking my wife out right in front of me.  Is he fucking kidding me with this shit?

But he isn’t kidding.  And Cathy gives him her phone number, which he programs into his phone.  They’re going to have lunch together.  This is going to happen.  My time to stop it has slipped through my fingers.

“Do you need help getting him in your van?” Andy asks her.

She shakes her head. “No, we’re good.  I can’t manage.”

“Well then.” He smiles dopily at her. “I’ll see you later then.  For lunch.”

Cathy grins back at him, and the two of them are just smiling at each other like two idiot teenagers who have a crush on each other.  I can’t even fucking believe this.

Cathy loads me up in the car, but all the while, I’ve got an awful sinking feeling in my gut.  She doesn’t smile like that at me anymore.  She doesn’t laugh the way he made her laugh.  I can be pissed off that he was moving in on my territory, but maybe it was just a matter of time. If it wasn’t Andy, it would be someone else.

I’m losing her.

The realization hits me that I’ve got to do something.  Cathy may be my wife and we may be dealing with a shitty situation right now, but it’s on me that I let the romance go out of my marriage.  I’ve got to do something to romance my wife.  I’ve got to show her that it can still be great between the two of us.  Poetry, flowers, romantic dinners with candlelight… I’ve got to be an ideal husband in all the ways that I still can be.

And I’ve got to show her that there’s still heat between the two of us.  I still find her incredibly sexy, and… well, I think she’s still attracted to me too.  I’ve got to fan the flames.

Maybe my mom will stick around and we can go out to dinner tonight.  I’ve got to get over my aversion to eating out.  We can go somewhere secluded and romantic.  And she can forget all about Andy.

I notice Cathy has rolled down the windows in the back.  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.  “Are you hot?”

Cathy glances back at me. “Uh, no.  I’m trying to air out the smell.”

I almost ask her what smell she’s talking about, but then I get a whiff of it.  I had an accident.  How the hell did I not notice that?  Am I become immune to the smell? It hits me that I’ve had enough accidents in this wheelchair that maybe the smell of it clings to the chair enough that I don’t even notice it.  That’s an upsetting thought.

“Sorry about that,” I say.

“It’s okay,” Cathy says, really casually.  “I know these car rides do it to you a lot.  We’re almost home and I’ll get you changed.  I picked up extra diapers yesterday.”

Now that I can smell it, it’s suddenly become really overpowering.  Cathy and I decided against going ahead with the colostomy, and then like clockwork, I started having daily accidents.  I’ve had one every single day this week. 

All I can think to myself is that I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to romance my wife when she’s cleaning up my shit on a daily basis.  I don’t know if I can win this one.