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Bad jello memories

(Warning to the guys, or to the pooh leery)

I need to post another health update. I feel great tonight! I’ve been catching up on some personal business this evening because I feel so great (and because the ER rerun was just a little too intense for me – the first time was enough.)

I’m really enjoying feeling great tonight because, frankly, I’ve felt rather crappy for the last few days – literally. I blogged a few days ago about the ongoing pooh issues. Over the weekend they actually got better. No Lomodil needed – everything was “poohfect.”

It’s that time of the month, and I started having cramps again. The weird thing was the cramps seemed to always happen, once again, about 30 to 45 minutes after I ate. But, unlike my typical “runny” self, this time it seemed like nothing was working its way through.

Back in the day my “Crohn’s” cramps often felt like really bad woman cramps – it was often hard to tell the difference.

Tuesday morning I went to work and had been there only a few minutes when I started getting the worst stomach cramps. If these were womanly cramps, man, I’ve never had cramps like these. They were training a new employee across the aisle, and I had to really work at it not to moan. The sweat was running down me. The cramps were all throughout my lower belly and my lower back and seemed to almost move down my legs. My joints were especially achy and I just felt miserable.

I left work.

But after I laid down about an hour at home, I felt fine –as though nothing were wrong. I had a very productive afternoon.

Then I ate dinner. I didn’t even eat a “normal” dinner. I’d decided to try the mush diet for awhile to see if it helped. Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE jello? Well, I hate jello. For a year of my life I pretty much lived on jello, ramen noodles, baby food fruit and ensure drinks. After a year of having jello become a food group in my life, I can’t even stand to look at jello. So, if I’m eating jello, I’m pretty miserable.

Once again, about 30 minutes after I ate the horrible cramps were back. I laid on my bed in a fetal position and just moaned. I felt so stupid going to the doctor with “cramps” at that time of the month. My bleeding wasn’t even very bad this month. I felt like a total wimp!

I was concerned that my ostomy wasn’t doing much and so was afraid that maybe there was something stuck in there. If that was the case, I worried that taking something to give me the runs back would only make it worse – kind of like sending a raging river at a dam. And even though my back was killing me, sort of like it was the last time I was at NIH (something that hasn’t happened since) I didn’t want to dig out the pain pills Kevin had given me. They cause constipation, and I didn’t want to make that worse. After about an hour, once again, I was totally fine. But still, not much in the pooh department.

Wednesday I stayed home from work. I had a very productive work day away from the distractions of the office. And being able to go lay down when these cramps came (always 30 to 34 minutes after eating) made the day easier.

Wednesday night I was feeling better and having a case of cabin fever by this point, I went to Homers to work for a while. I took the long way home because I wanted the exercise. What do you know, but finally the dam broke – it was pooharama.

Thinking I’d finally worked through whatever the problem was, and being rather hungry on the jello diet, I had an egg sandwich for breakfast this morning. Big mistake.

There I was again at my desk, stomach cramping and the sweat running down my face. I ate a small cup of ice cream for lunch – (I had to work with what I could find in at the deli. It’s in the 100s here – they aren’t making soup.) That went fine.

This evening I was feeling really hungry, really grouchy and really frustrated. I’d had enough. I was ready to throw a tantrum. I had a burger and french fries at McDonalds – if anything should make a person sick, that should be it. I put down the gauntlet – gut, bring it on.

No problems. Go figure. We’re back to diarrhea. So far, I’m not taking anything.

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