And So It Was That I Pooped Today
I’ve spent the last three days wondering if emergency surgery would be required to clear a bowel obstruction.
Here’s the thing. If me talking about poop troubles you in any way for any reason, you need to find something else to read. I have IBS, zero qualms, and a bag of edibles making me feel pretty bold right now.
I promise you I can’t be bothered to care whether this topic makes you squirm. Plus there are people out there who need me to write about this as much as I need to tell the tale.
Last night I went to bed near tears, my abdomen hurt so much. I spent most of the late afternoon using the shiatsu massager someone gifted me a couple of years ago on my belly. The heat and massage relieved some of the discomfort, and I was desperate.
Plus, I’d read that self-massage can relieve constipation and since I’m too weak and fatigued, I knew it was the closest I was going to get. I had to try.
I also sipped hot tea. I ate Activia. I took laxatives. I drank coffee. I threw caution to the wind and ate IBS-D triggers. Then, when none of that helped, I did the only thing I could. I panicked and let the anxiety in.
I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling and contemplating the blogger from 14 years ago who almost died because of a severe bowel obstruction. I saw her face and her hospital gown in my mind’s eye, and I pondered the worst.
Anxiety used to trigger IBS-D, by the way, but not this time. That turd wasn’t going to budge for nothin’.
I spent enough time on the toilet hoping for a bowel to twitch that eventually my legs went purple from the blood pooling around my feet and ankles.
(I have a foot rest, but after so much time even that doesn’t help.)
When I woke up this morning to take my levothyroxine, the water I sipped made me notice just how much I wanted to barf. I closed my eyes and willed away the nausea, falling back asleep for another hour. But when I woke again, the urge to hurl was still there.
I felt that familiar discomfort in my lower left abdominal quadrant where something (it was the poop) was setting off radiating nerve pain. I dug my palm in a little, pressing and pushing down toward my leg. My bowels rumbled.
“This is it! It’s happening! Finally!” I thought.
And so it was that I pooped today.
But you know what was waiting in the wings behind that IBS-C poop? IBS-D poop. That’s what.
No wonder I felt so awful. I might as well have been walking around for days with a cork up my ass.
And the best part is now I get to wonder if this is just ordinary IBS stuff or if the Plaquenil is making shit worse.
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