In Which I Hold It

As I've written about here recently, living at my parents house while under quarantine from my apartment can be interesting at times. Excluding the time that I heard them bone while trying to go to sleep a few weeks ago, all of the other incidents that I can recall have been pretty tame. I'm probably jinxing myself by saying this, but how I've gone through the past two weeks without having a raging case of morning wood to hide is beyond me.

Really, though, living with my parents isn't all that bad. They give me my space and I try my best to give them theirs. I appreciate all that they are doing (and have done) for me during this time. I'm as flexible as I can be with anything that I have going on, especially now that I am sans transportation. Even with all of that and trying my best to stay out of their way, some things are just out of my control.

Take, for example, the powerful and angry urges of a full bladder.

I'll get to the story in a second; I need to work my way up to it.

As anyone who has been on steroids for any length of time will tell you, the medication, quite simply, fucks with your body. While it affects different people in different ways, I liken it to one's foot being mashed down heavily on your body's accelerator: It intensifies things. For me, the intensified urges have been of hunger and thirst. I can keep the desire to eat constantly in check easily enough (though not without any great struggle at first), but drinking? Let's just say that if water were alcohol, I would have needed a new liver 13 days ago.

I drink like a fish normally, so this really is nothing new. I was told when I started taking steroids about a month ago that I needed to increase my fluid intake, so... I did. Everywhere I am these days, I'm drinking something. It's not much of an effort on my part, because if I didn't do it on my own the constant thirst as caused by the 'roids would have made me drink more anyways.

With the increase of fluids, obviously, I'm making more frequent trips to the bathroom.

Here's where the story comes in.

Throughout the course of a normal, non-steroid-affected day, I'll piss maybe about five times. These days, I'm making about a dozen or more trips to the bathroom. I feel like I'm in one of those pharmaceutical commercials for guys with prostate problems. You know, the one's where some poor guy is always missing out on something monumental because he's always in the john? I haven't missed a spectacular play at some sporting event or missed reeling in a prize-winning fish because of it, but I can't read a chapter of a book or get through half a movie without having to get up to take a leak.

My bladder isn't doing such a good job of warning me when I need to go, either. Normally I'll go through a couple of stages (incidentally, I call it PISSCON, and there are five stages) where my bladder will tell me, with increasing urgency over a period of time, that I need to go. Short of user error, there haven't been any accidents since I started using the PISSCON system.

I'm not so lucky on the steroids, though. I'll be minding my own business and then WHAM! Suddenly we're on PISSCON Level Five, Yellow Alert, and if I don't get myself to a toilet immediately, I'd have no choice but to spray everyone and everything around me with urine like an errant fire hose on full strength.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

My parents house has one bathroom.

There have been some mornings recently, as I sit with my legs crossed, trying to think of something, anything else other than how badly I need to urinate until my dad finally emerges from the bathroom after spending almost two hours in there doing God-knows-what, where I've seriously considered dropping trou outside and watering the lawn alongside their dog.

If clenching my bladder shut was an Olympic sport, I'd be a gold medal winner.