Flush It Friday: The Fermenting Innards Edition
Hello and welcome to another edition of Flush It Friday. Its been a long time since I last wrote for the Toilet, and a lot has happened in my life since then. I guess the reason I decided to write this is because I desperately need to vent out some of the depression and stress that has been festering in my gut for the past month. Things have been difficult, and I really just need to lay everything out on the table here.
The Background
During this winter I really cracked down on my own self by trying to eliminate alcohol and by getting back in shape. This meant eating healthy and working out. I totally achieved this goal and got in peak physical shape, I mean I was in fucking shape goddamnit! Every morning I woke up at 5 am, ate my breakfast, and ran 4 miles before work. After work I ran some more, ate my dinner, and went the fuck to bed. This was my routine for about 5 months. My diet plan never changed either. Everyday it was the same goddamn meal plan. I guess you could say that I became a bit compulsive with it all and basically withered away to nothing. I lost 40 pounds in 5 months which brought me down to 140 pounds, and this is a guy that is six foot 2 inches tall (I basically was a walking skeleton). I was totally fine with this lifestyle because nothing was going wrong for me; in fact, everything was perfect. I was living the best I have ever lived.
On memorial day weekend I decided to visit my father who now lives in Tampa, Florida. This trip was planned for over a month, and I was basically dreading it. Sounds strange… Right? Yeah, I was basically horrified by the thought that I’d be changing up my meal plan and not being able to work out as much. Change is my worst nightmare, and the fact that I would be around people who drank booze for 4 days straight gave me so much anxiety. When the day came to fly down to see my father, the minute I stepped into his house it was beer-30, and of course I broke. I had about 3 beers that night and ate a bunch of food just before passing out. The next day I felt shitty but not too bad and decided to run. After my run I felt fine and decided that day I’d just really let loose. So I drank more beer and ate more food that my body was not familiar with. I even drank a bunch of really high octane espressos from the espresso machine my dad had. After a day of stuffing my face with greasy food, caffeine, and alcohol I went to bed. The next day was the start to a long and painful journey through hell.
The Hell Journey
As many of you know, since my vacation I’ve been batting an unknown stomach disorder for the past month, and not much has improved unfortunately since May 29th. I’ve had countless tests done that basically all came back normal, yet I can’t eat food without feeling sick all of the time. My GI doctor suspected that I may have Gastroparesis which is a condition that affects the stomach muscles and prevents proper stomach emptying. The test results showed some delay at the end, but it was very minimal. My endoscopy showed no inflammation of the stomach lining or the esophagus, and my ultrasound for my gallbladder came back normal as well. I just had a CT Scan done today and will have the results by Monday of next week. So basically for a month I’ve been experimenting with foods to see what works. Literally the only things that I can eat without throwing up and feeling completely miserable afterwards are white bread, pureed cooked carrots, some baby foods, bananas, and saltine crackers/pretzels. I can also eat/suck on black licorice and eat popsicles. Everything else feels like lead in my stomach which makes me severely nauseous. Things high in fiber, fat, and protein especially. Portion is another big factor here; I can really only eat two thirds of a cup of food every 2 hours or so. If I exceed this I will just barf all of what I ate into oblivion.
So as you can probably gauge, this has been a stressful and agonizing journey for me this month. I can’t run anymore because I’m too weak from not getting the calories and nutrition I need. I can’t do my job efficiently without being in constant discomfort and distress. The list goes on and on here. Oh!!! I almost forgot. My birthday which was this month was a real swell one. Throwing up and not even being able to have cake or ice cream was a real fucking downer. I’m tired of throwing up all of the time and not being able to eat. I’m literally tired period. This illness is so draining. I can only spend so much money on supplements, tests, medicine, and doctors. Nothing is working here. Something has to give here, guys.
The Good: As of today I got my doctor to fill out my company’s short-term disability form which will allow me to have a month to just focus on fixing my gut. Dealing with work and my illness has been overwhelming to say the least. My stomach is a full-time job, and that is more important at the moment. I’m so grateful that I have a job that has benefits. Also, my job is secured for 3 months.
The Bad: Still no real progress here, guys. I’m still spewing chunks, and I’m still a miserable wreck. Can they just replace my stomach with an artificial one? That would be a nice!
The Ugly: The amount of vomit that I’ve spewed the past month. ULTIMATE FLUSH!!!
Spew away in the comment section below, guys!!! I leave you with some oldschool Carcass. This song is my life at the moment.
