Cancer 73

I have never really seen the humour in farting. While I am probably as childish as the next person when it comes to humour generally, fartingi s just not funny. At school several of the kids would fart then expect everyone to laugh. Many did laugh, but I always was a little disgusted by the idea that small particles of shit would stimulate my olfactory system. Inhaling the contents of someone else’s arse lacks that certain something that is required to make me laugh. It was, and is, disgusting.

It is much worse for me now with a stoma. I have absolutely no control of the output of my remaining bowel. If it is going to discharge shit, it discharges shit. Sometimes I am aware of it, sometimes I am not. If it is going to discharge wind it is the same. Usually no warning. Just like complete people it is sometimes silent, sometimes reasonably quiet, and sometimes very loud. It can be short or long.

I am not normally embarassed by things, but I am embarassed by my uncontrollable farts. I don’t like it, I want to disappear. Inevitably the people around me will either remain silent or will laugh. I don’t like that either – not that there is much choice. How can you respond to someone farting? We are all conditioned to laugh or remain silent when someone farts. The thing is, you lot can control – to a large extent – when you fart. I can’t. You can deliberately do it for a laugh (if you are puerile), I can’t. When it happens at the dining table it is worse. When it happens at a dining table in public it is even worse. In private with friends and family it is bad enough. They may understand I have no control, though they still often have the horrid laugh/silent reaction. In public people just think I am rude. I haven’t yet told strangers at a different table about my predicament but I probably should. It is just that I am embarrassed to do so.

I should probably avoid foods that generate wind, but this is not fully effective. Everyone generates wind, no matter what they eat. Dietary control (not a concept I have ever been fully familiar with) can only partly solve the problem.

The only advantage I have when farting is that it never smells. The stoma bag has a very effective filter. So, Mr and Mrs general public, you may hear me fart, but you will never smell me. You will never have that fine olfactory experience of particulate shit finding its way up your nose.