Story advice please!

[simon_brooke@mastodon.scot]

Story advice please!

I have a character, an elderly senior official in a roughly bronze-age city with roughly bronze-age medical science.

I want him to have a progressive medical condition which he is trying to conceal, which will eventually kill him, and which requires him to take frequent, sometimes extended, lavatory breaks.

What is his illness, and what would people around him be able to observe?

[davetortoise@social.vivaldi.net]

@simon_brooke auto-brewery syndrome might work if your character can be drunk all the time

[astronomerritt@hachyderm.io]

@simon_brooke Prostate cancer? Depending on how advanced it is, people would notice the bathroom breaks, lower back pain, fatigue, weight loss.

[robparsons@mastodon.social]

@astronomerritt @simon_brooke my prostate cancer concurs, that would be the way to go.

[kluthulhu@infosec.exchange]

@simon_brooke Frequent urination is a possible warning marker for Diabetes 🤔

[kluthulhu@infosec.exchange]

@simon_brooke people would be able to also observe excessive sleepiness after meals, wound healing issues, diabetic gangrene...

[realgene@hachyderm.io]

@simon_brooke
In Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy, Daniel Waterhouse has bladder stones, which cause him excruciating pain and difficulty urinating…

[simon_brooke@mastodon.scot]

@kluthulhu and also anger management issues, mood swings, and occasional confusion.

Thank you, another good suggestion. Hadn't thought about diabetes, but it's an interesting possibility. Before modern medicine, was diabetes often fatal?

[simon_brooke@mastodon.scot]

@astronomerritt again, thank you. Painful, progressive, ultimately fatal without modern medicine. Ticks all the boxes I need.

[thesquirrelfish@sfba.social]

@simon_brooke @kluthulhu even with modern medicine it's often fatal

[kluthulhu@infosec.exchange]

@simon_brooke I'd suspect that inconsistent food intake would be a serious risk, and wound healing issues/gangrene would be even more serious in the pre-antibiotics age

[simon_brooke@mastodon.scot]

@davetortoise no, that doesn't work. He's a commoner who has risen to high office as a consequence of extreme competence, and he will only retain his position (which means his unmarried daughter will only retain hers) while he remains extremely competent. He's resented by the aristocracy and feared by the commons, and, not being corrupt, he doesn't have much wealth.

When he falls it will be hard, and everyone around him can see this.

[greenyesscotland@mastodon.scot]

@simon_brooke Crohn's disease, maybe. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/crohns-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20353304

[marjolica@social.linux.pizza]

@simon_brooke Prostate or Bowel Cancer?

If it's to pee:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/prostate-cancer/symptoms/

If it's to defecate:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bowel-cancer/symptoms/

[vapaad@wandering.shop]

@thesquirrelfish @simon_brooke @kluthulhu

To add onto this, common fatalities of diabetes include kidney failure, increased complications of infection and delayed wound healing, and contributes significantly to heart disease/failure

Neuropathy/vascular leg and foot damage can definitely be a plot point if travelling is frequent and done by walking.

diabetes would be a good plot point because you could take it a lot of different ways if that's convenient (otherwise I agree with prostate cx)