I am not eager to write, much less publish, this piece. Discussing my gastrointestinal issues before readers is not my idea of a good time. Speaking of which, trigger warning: I’m going to open by discussing my gastrointestinal issues.

I have lived with said issues, the result of a surgical mishap, for 20 years. I have tested diet, meds, probiotics, special undergarments, positive thinking, sacrificing a pumpkin spice latte on an altar, and more, all to no avail. The upshot? Let’s just say that sometimes my innards give me minutes if I’m lucky, seconds if I’m not, to take a seat in a restroom. I shall leave to your imagination the inconvenience and humiliation that I have, on occasion, endured when none was at hand.

Last week I found myself in a large public building, making a beeline in the direction of a mercifully easy-to-spot restroom sign. Alas, it turned out to be the women’s room. No men’s room was in sight, and on this occasion my innards had no intention of affording me time to hunt for one. I later learned that the men’s room was one floor down. I would not have made it.

So it was that, not for the first time, I slipped into a women’s room. Mind you, not even the most casual observer would mistake me for female. I’m six feet tall, 220 pounds, bald, and bearded. I have a baritone voice. No wonder the woman reading a magazine in the lounge area looked up with surprise. “I’m sorry,” I stammered, “I have a condition and I can’t find the men’s—”

“Don’t worry about it,” the woman interrupted, motioning toward the doorway to the stalls, “go ahead.”

By the time I reemerged a few minutes later, a second woman had joined the first in the lounge. Again I began an apology. “No problem,” the newcomer said. I thanked them both, hurried out, and disappeared down the hallway as fast I could.

This little adventure took place in a city where people tend not to be uptight about such things. Had it taken place in Utah, my home for 43 years, there’s no telling what kind of hubbub might have ensued. 

Or maybe not. Even when I lived in Utah, my condition tended to win understanding to my side. Moreover, I think you’ll agree that no harm was done. After all, if you have ever visited a women’s restroom, you know that the stalls tend to provide privacy.

But … suppose I’d been in Utah … and suppose I were a transgender woman. In that case, I might be writing about my adventure from a cell instead of my office. Which, when you think about it, is absurd. Condition or no condition, if a straight male does no harm using a women’s room, neither does a transgender woman using a women’s room, nor a transgender man using a men’s room.

If you think transgender people are de facto predatory, you’re just plain uninformed. If you think a restroom is a sexual predator’s preferred hunting ground, let’s hope you’re uninformed and not projecting. The overwhelming majority of people who enter a restroom are there to go potty. Let them.

As I said, I don’t enjoy sharing personal medical matters. But if it might nudge one or two self-appointed morality police an iota closer to basic humanity, I’m willing.

Today I celebrate 20 bonus years of life.

On December 14, 2004, I was wrapping up an address at a marketing conference when a strangulated hernia made its presence known to me. Its method of announcing itself was to hurt like hell. “If you feel a sharp pain right there,” my doc had forewarned me, pointing, “you’ll have a few hours to get to an ER.” So, knowing I had time, I held my composure, finished my remarks, and took questions. After the crowd dispersed, I asked the fellow in charge of the conference for a ride to the nearest hospital.

I would have gone home five days after that emergency surgery had sepsis not set in. Instead, I was transferred to Salt Lake City’s University Hospital. Soon after, my body thought it would be fun to compound the sepsis with multiple organ failure, pneumonia, infection upon infection, and more. 

I was in hospital for a little over four months. I have no memory of roughly the first two. When I came to, I asked one of my surgeons what he thought when I’d arrived. “I thought you were going to die,” he said, adding, “I thought about letting you.” We became good friends.

I underwent a dozen surgeries before losing count. Aware though I was that I would likely die, I wasn’t scared. Death has never scared me. Mainly, I hoped my kids, then 20 and 25, would be all right. What did scare me was the thought of being interminably stuck in a bed and fed through tubes.

Sometime in April 2005, to the relief of family, friends, and creditors, I recovered and went home. A handful of friends hoped I would re-find religion. Nope. One hoped I would embrace her multi-level marketing company’s flimflam “health products.” Also nope.

I had a couple of reparative surgeries about a year later. But for an inconvenient side effect or two that persist to this day, I was pretty much back to normal. A big shout-out goes to University Hospital. They pulled out all the stops and saved my life. I am told the docs there still discuss my case when the topic of against-all-odds recoveries comes up.

So I see the last two decades as a bonus, a gift. During that time, my grandchildren were born; I discovered the James Randi Educational Foundation, through which I learned, grew, and made great friends; over time, my entire family moved to Portland; I managed an accomplishment or two; and, today, I am the happiest, the most content I have ever been. That’s a good thing. It certainly beats yearning for an earlier day.

It’s impossible to enjoy every day as if it were your last. Life has a habit of getting in the way of appreciating the moment. I remember that takeaway when, at 16, I read Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. But I can certainly look back, as I do now, and appreciate the bonus years.

P.S. The hospital bill? A little over $800,000.00. Mind you, those were 2005 dollars. I am self-employed and had been uninsured for years. By sheerest luck, I had obtained health insurance about a year before these events unfolded. I shudder to think what might have happened otherwise. The U.S.A.’s health system is heartless and insane.