#TMI runnerpost

[somerunner]

Potentially solved a non-mystery from last night. Below a read-more for a colon health incident, not an ongoing issue or anything scary (just TMI). And since it’s under a read-more I guess I’m forgoing editing and making this a saga.

I’ll just put the TMI here at the top: I had painful diarrhea last night. I thought it was from earlier that afternoon, when I ate instant ramen dry out of the packet and felt nauseous while eating it. Frankly, it still might be.

Before I get into the longer story, I poured myself some milk tonight and noticed it’s a day from expiring — and that, when I poured it, a bunch of small bubbles came up. Like it was an almost-flat carbonated drink. Well. I took a micro-sip, and it tasted fine, but I’m not taking my chances. This may have been something that contributed to my awful night last night, alongside the ramen. And maybe what I ate for dinner (skipped a meal and had a massive 1200-calorie beans+spaghetti that may have contributed to my bowel pain. And had some low-sodium V8 that somehow tasted extremely salty (musta been the potassium) and almost felt like an emetic).

Anyway, it hurt a lot. I was sitting in bed for almost half an hour as I waited for the intestinal conveyor belt to move things forward. Could feel the food moving for like twenty seconds at one point, so clearly my intestines were doing a rush job. Sure enough, they didn’t have time to reabsorb water. Diarrhea.

I was dehydrated. I wanted to vomit but refused. I sat for a few minutes. I went back to bed. Woke up a few hours later for round two.

This time took a while. More diarrhea. Everything still hurt, so I sat for what felt like an hour as I waited for more too-hydrated poop to move down the pipes. I knew I needed water even though my body said “no I don’t want water” so I had to sit for like ten minutes to verify I could make it down the hall without a surprise bowel movement. Got my water bottle, took a few gulps, set it on the bathroom counter, and went back on the toilet to silently groan in pain.

It’s been a while since I’ve hurt this much outside of a workout. It was a religious experience, really. I think I’ve said before that I’m grateful for occasional pain, for the perspective, for reminding me of the many things you can feel in a mortal body. I had hoped that it would be a wake-up call of sorts, getting me to spend less time online, but that didn’t work (clearly).

Another couple don’t-soil-my-pants trips; one for a new roll of toilet paper from the back room (I didn’t use *that* much; we were low already), and one to stand in the hot shower and hope that encouraged more blood flow to my colon. And that it would soothe the pain. Wait, actually, the TP trip was first, then the water trip, then the shower.

…

Anyway go read the manga DeadAss it’s basically this. Well it’s got “painful bowel movements as a profound experience” and that’s about the only similarity. But it’s a really good story. Pardon the cover; just note there’s no actual genitalia pictured.