The late Dan O’Bannon stands as one of my all-time favourite creative forces in the genre. One only has to glance over his body of work to see the impact he’s had on modern horror and fantasy: Alien, Return of the Living Dead, Heavy Metal, Total Recall and Dark Star are all part of that impressive resume.
One biographical note on O’Bannon that I had been unaware of until quite recently was the fact that he suffered from Crohn’s Disease throughout his life. In fact, the famous “chest-burster” sequence in Alien was inspired by O’Bannon’s many battles with the disease. In my own struggle with Crohn’s, during the worst nights of cramping--with the food trapped in my gut and nowhere for it to bloody well go--I’ve often thought of that scene. To find out the grim inspiration for Kane’s demise after all these years... I’m almost ashamed I didn’t make the connection sooner. Women I’ve met who have also suffered from Crohn’s have likened the pain to being worse than childbirth.
Over the years, Crohn’s has sort of been like a series of sporadic slasher films, with the villain returning every so often to mess up my life. I’ve had years with no symptoms whatsoever, only to have the disease come back and turn my stomach against me. Gradually, every plate of food on the table turns to poison; you eat what you can hold down and hope it won’t double you over in pain for the rest of the day. The human body can only withstand this for so long: eating less, losing weight, not getting enough nutrition to your body and brain to live a normal life. The end result is always a trip to the hospital for surgery, followed by a lengthy recovery and the hope that you’ll get a good stretch with no symptoms.
I lost count of the surgeries many years ago, but I had been on a good run of clean health up until the summer of 2012. The symptoms started coming back with a vengeance, and I spent the next 12 months struggling through work and trying to have a semi-normal life. Writing, unfortunately, took a back seat during all of this. Most days involved me dragging myself through the day job, coming home and crashing immediately on the couch for the next 3-4 hours. Hopefully, after a bit of sleep, I’d have enough energy to get a light supper in me. I was spiraling the drain and knew that surgery was the only option.
Finally, in September, I was able to get on the operating table and had a few sections of intestine removed (I didn’t mean for this entry to be an explanation of Crohn’s Disease, but my problems in short: the intestines bleed, scar and repeat until there isn’t enough room for a single pea to pass through...hence the severe pain and general difficulty with eating). Ideally, I would have been out of the hospital after ten days. But it was a rough operation--a lot of adhesions from old surgeries--that ended up taking seven-and-a-half hours. My x-rays showed a gut that looked like it had been “beaten with a shovel” as my surgeon said.
Three weeks after the operation, I was still unable to eat properly. All they can do is shove a tube up your nose and down into your stomach (to drain bile from your gut) and feed you intravenously. I’ve read horror stories about people whose stomachs don’t start working again--they get fed intravenously for an indefinite period, the IV pole their constant companion. I was seriously worried that I’d end up stuck in the same state. What kind of life would that be? It was a scary time for Nora and I both. I wound up staying in the hospital for over a month, but thankfully, I’m now eating again. Not a huge diet by any means, but just being able to enjoy a meal with family and friends is such a gift. I met people in the hospital who had been stuck on the inside for seven months or more.
I still think about Dan O’Bannon a lot. They say Crohn’s can’t kill you, but that’s sadly inaccurate. The disease did eventually kill O’Bannon, and make no mistake: it can beat you to a pulp, over and over.
I still have a long recovery ahead of me, but I’m getting better every day. One blessing from all of this free time is the amount of reading I’ve been able to enjoy...and with that has come the desire to start writing again. I’ve always hated those periods where Crohn’s defines my life and circumstances. I’m looking forward to those days when it’s just a minor inconvenience again. I won’t think about the next relapse, the next trip to the hospital, the next recovery. Fuck it, those are the future Daniel LeMoal’s problems.
That poor old bastard won’t know what hit him!
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