EPSIE'S CURSE

EPSIE'S CURSE
T. Wieland Allen

Epsie was a wonderful friend and neighbor. She was always there for us. She never let one house guest leave our house without having a plate full of her best-ever fudge, not the kind made with marshmallow cream, but the fudge made in her old beat up pan on top of the stove with sugar and cocoa as the basic ingredients.
Epsie was always good for a laugh, too, being that she was one of God's wonderful characters. I could write a volume about her, and I might some time but not right now. I want to tell you about her words that came to me as if she were speaking them to me in my presence rather than from heaven, where she's lived for quite a few years.
The topic of her words in my mind referred to a conversation we had years ago. She told me that she was talking to her daughter one day on the phone, which was their daily habit since both daughters lived far away in other towns. Epsie told me that her daughter said to her, "Mom, don't you and your friends ever talk about anything else but the three Cs?"
Epsie asked her daughter what three Cs she was talking about as being the subject of all of her conversations.
Her daughter said, "You only talk about constipation, cholesterol and children. Don't you have any other subject in life in which you are interested? "
Epsie assured her daughter that, yes, certainly those three Cs comprised 99 percent of the conversations between herself and her friends.
Since my husband and I have great cholesterol numbers, that leaves out that interesting subject from our talks together or with friends.
Our children are wonderful people, self supporting, independent, happy, and with the wisdom to handle their own problems, so we have no problems relating to our children on which to bore people or elicit their input.
That leaves the last subject of interest in the conversations of Epsie, her friends, and most other people over 70 years old. Constipation.
Now, that is not a normal subject in which my husband and I are interested, because it's never been a problem for us. However, during a current surgical procedure and the beginning of chemotherapy treatment that subject has been foremost in our minds. In fact, it has become kind of an obsession. I can finally understand Epsie's obsession with it. It can be a real problem.
The PDR information on all three chemotherapy meds which my husband has been prescribed have a notation that we dreaded seeing, "MAY CAUSE CONSTIPATION." Then the PDR information on the meds given to him to prevent nausea and vomiting read, "MAY CAUSE CONSTIPATION."
Well, let me tell you, they got the inscriptions wrong. The package inserts and the PDR information should have said, "WILL CERTAINLY, 100% CAUSE CONSTIPATION, LOCKING YOU UP SO SUCCESSFULLY THAT ONLY DYNAMITE CAN UNLOCK YOU. "
Three days into the chemotherapy there it was, Epsie's curse, present in our lives. We had escaped the other two conversation topics but now we were in the throes of 24 hour, every second of every minute of every day talking about the third C topic.
The more remedies we tried, the more frustrated we became. We tried stool softeners. We tried meds the pharmacist suggested. Then we tried Dr. Gott's formula which consists of applesauce, prune juice and bran mixed together. We tried Metamucil. We tried plain hot prune juice. We tried more stool softeners, now being on the side of disobeying the orders on the side of the bottle cautioning people not to take more than four in a day. We tried bran cereal. We tried bran muffins. At that point dynamite was looking very possible as the next step, or the dreaded trip to the ER to have the doctor there do their painful plumbing unstopping procedure.
My sister Lou, bless her sweet, resourceful heart, called to inquire how the third day of chemo had gone. I relapsed into Epsie's curse of talking at length about the constipation problem. Then she spoke magic words, "Have you tried suppositories?"
Oh, My Gosh, how did we ever forget that one?
Looking in my medicine cabinet I found a jar of suppositories, the magic cure. I gave it to my husband, and voila, several hours later the problem was solved.
This is my last opportunity to talk about the three Cs that permeated Epsie's conversations. The one C that became a problem was instantly cured by my sister's input, a simple suppository. Thanks to her we didn't have to seek drastic measures, dynamite or the ER plunger technique.
Sister Lou fulfilled a message that came to me that very morning, "Today is the day of salvation. You'll find the cure for the constipation."
That's the first time God had assured me of something as mundane as that, one of the three Cs. But that day we were in need of divine guidance to solve what had become a problem to us, one of Epsie's curses.
Now if Lou could teach me to make fudge the way Epsie did, I would be in debt to her all my life.