FROM THE EDITOR: Chad Justus Hanson has had an amazing life. Although he has diabetes, which has brought retinopathy and circulatory problems in his feet, he is still active—and maintains a robust sense of humor. We don't often see humor in VOICE OF THE DIABETIC, as diabetes is serious business. But, laughter is good medicine!

Chad describes his camping adventure as "semi-fiction." See which half you think is true!

Chad Hanson grew up on a farm near Charleston, West Virginia. His family raised chickens, hogs, cattle, horses, goats, and rabbits, and kept a huge "victory garden."

Chad, the youngest of eight children, started lifting weights at age 12, and built his body up; by age 19 he could benchpress 440 lbs. He boxed in high school, at a local fight club, in college, and in the Air Force. At 6'2" and 210 lbs, he had both speed and power.

On his twenty-first birthday, Chad Hanson won the regional heavyweight boxing championship. Although he never fought as a professional, he had 100 amateur bouts, and he won them all, 88 by knockout. His mother was very concerned he might get hurt in the ring, and convinced him to retire after his 100th fight.

Chad then developed an interest in Judo, earning the rank of fifth degree black belt (godan). He followed this with an interest in Karate, in which he holds a black belt as well. After serving in the United States Air Force, he found employment as a private investigator, a job he held for nearly 40 years.

Chad loves music, and he sings, plays the organ, and writes songs. He writes poems and short stories. He and Dorothy have been married for 38 years, and have a son, a daughter, and two grandsons. Here's his story.

Do you remember the TV commercial where the scrawny little guy in horn-rimmed glasses says, "Could I talk to you about . . . diarrhea?" It seemed to me to be a distasteful commercial at that time and thinking back about it, it still is. I will have to admit, however, as we get older, personal problems of this type and its counterpart, constipation, can loom large! Over the weekend Dorothy and I, and our five-month-old wolf cub, Silver, decided to visit one of the nearby National Forests.

Things were going along rather smoothly, except that I was bothered by one of the previous mentioned problems. As we camped Friday night, I got up to make one of several frequent visits to the bathroom in our motor home.

Coming back to bed, I spotted a package recently arrived from a friend in South Carolina. It contained "divinity," a white taffy-like candy very popular in the south. In the semi-darkness, I bumped the box, spilling some of its contents on the sink countertop. I picked up a piece, put it in my mouth, still half asleep, I laid back down. I suddenly came to the realization that I had mistakenly picked up a tiny bar of "motel" soap and had eaten that instead. I became alarmed, with the gas on my stomach, that this might become a serious problem. I reached for the cell phone and phoned the medical center. After the lady on the other end of the phone quit laughing, her recommendation was, "whatever you do, don't drink water."

Since the water in most of these campsites is not palatable anyway, that wasn't a problem. Later, still half asleep I opened the refrigerator, and popped open a can of cold Diet Pepsi, forgetting about the high seltzer water content. The "end" results, with the gas on my stomach, resembled the Lawrence Welk Show—bubbles, bubbles everywhere!

You would think that would be sufficient, but in moving the motor home to another location, a kid on a bike darted across the street in front of Dorothy. She slammed on the power brakes and skidded to a halt, narrowly missing the kid. His response was a grin and a salute with his middle finger. Dorothy responded with a strong blast of our air horn. Our unit is over six tons in weight and coming to a sudden stop, I slid off the couch onto the floor! An assortment of pots and pans rolled to the front, and a bar of soap coming from the rear bathroom passed by me on the floor. Unknown to us, a box of kitchen matches also hit the floor and scattered its contents. When it was safe to find a pullout spot, she did so, and we started to pick up and reorganize the disarrayed items. We were quite alarmed to discover that a number of kitchen matches had rolled under the kitchen table, which our five-month-old wolf cub, Silver, claims as his den.

He had eaten a number of the matches. Earlier that day, I had had a small cheese and pepperoni pizza. Not wanting more problems with gas, I had picked off the pepperoni and fed them to the cub. Now he had a problem with gas, too, and I was concerned that with all those matches inside of him, some sort of an explosion might occur. I told Dorothy to be careful: keep him away from the propane tank and any dried grass that might be around the motor home. What a day!

Now, one would think that would be sufficient personal problems for one weekend; but I guess I was wrong again. The next morning, we discovered, to our chagrin, that the sewer line, to which we had hooked our dump tank, was stopped up. Definitely not working. About that time, Dorothy spotted the camp host walking past our motor home. She went out and asked for help.

He explained to her that he had a portable generator, with a tremendous vacuum pull, that would clear it up very quickly. I knew nothing of this conversation. Having still the aforementioned problem, I was in the bathroom, taking care of business, when I heard a generator fire up. As many of the motor homes, including ours, also had a generator, I thought nothing of it. Suddenly I felt the suction of a tremendous vacuum. My immediate reaction was to stand up. I tried, but I couldn't. A second attempt also failed. One more time also failed. I pounded with my fist on the bathroom wall, a prearranged signal with Dorothy if there was any trouble, and she came to see what the problem was. When she got up off the floor from laughing, she managed to get back outside and explain the problem to the camp host, who turned off the vacuum generator, which permitted me to stand. I discovered, lo and behold, that constipation was no longer a problem. Usually a colonic irrigation costs $50. This one was free.

Come camping with us sometime. We have loads of fun, even with personal problems.