I knew I would have to start blogging about the pooping process after having my appendectomy when my neighbor called the fire department because the sounds coming from the window sounded very much like I was being mutilated by an ax murder. (And I was really only trying to fart) Ok, so the appendicitis pain was pretty excruciating, the sharp pains like someone was stabbing the right side of my stomach with an old rusty fish boning knife. You know the kind, it appeared in the movie Jaws, when Quint was cutting up some fish and although the fish was clearly dead, it writhed in pain because the sharpness of the knife was as painful going in as was when it was being thrust back out. That pain? Two days, then to hospital and surgery and that magic drug button I pushed every goddam time it would allow me. Heaven in a little hand held device.
But lucky me, I have Jon, the male nurse who is trying to make friends with everyone on his hospital staff and says to me, he really did say this to me at 5 am so I would be too delirious to hear it exactly, “I am trying to get you off the drip to make it easier for the day nurse so she doesn’t have to deal with taking it out.”
“Fuck the nurse” said in the hospital can mean so many things, but he got the one that meant, “leave the damn drip in or I am going to get out of this bed and wrap the fucking IV cord around your nurse neck”.
But for two hours between the time I was thinking my little drip friend was turned off and Jon gave me an oral pain med, I was building up that dreaded. “don’t let the pain get ahead of you” kind of pain, the one everyone swears you cannot make it back from. I haven’t been able to get ahead of it since then, hope the day nurse knows how much pain I am in because of her.
Ok, back to farting, I mean farting, the most childish, laugh out loud sound one can produce. (Except me) Some people can fart on demand, fart the Star Spangled Banner, fart “I love you”, me, no farts. And it will be the single most pain relieving thing that could happen to me. I shouldn’t lie, I have had a few sounds come out, but I would call them toots, little cutsie, “oh I am passing gas” sounds.
1:30 am the second night after the surgery, and let me remind you, I have been consuming large amounts of SennerS, a mixture of stool softener and laxative for a couple of days after the surgery and continue to do so. Although I have to admit to taking extra these last few days because I clearly don’t have the type of intestines that like to be told what to do and feel they need a little extra urging. My fear is the next Missoula Flood action if it actually does kick in and work at one time but for now, I am taking my chances. And I think FEMA finally knows how to handle a natural disaster. So, I am on the potty, gripping my phone so hard I thought it might break like those machines in cartoons where when tney explode, little parts and springs are sent high into the air...but who cares, the pain is so awful, if it does break, it will give me something to look at while I scream in agony. Waiting, waiting, ouchy, ouchy, finally, 1:30am (I looked at my watch as my thinking was this may be the last time I ever have a bowel movement again) It came, but it came with such lackluster that I don’t really want to write about it, let's just say I expelled.
I was joyful, texted my brother and sister the good news. I thought that by having that bowel movement all the gas in my very swollen belly and up in my neck and right ear???, it would all go away and I would never have another issue going to the bathroom. I should have taken a video and You tubed it so I could go back and watch something that verified that I had actually gone to the bathroom. And by the way, peeing isn’t a walk in the urinal either.
My days are filled with wistful thoughts of the fireside farting scene from Blazing Saddles, researching gas passing on the internet (nurses swear if you roll back and forth on your sides while laying down, it will produce the almighty gas expulsion), and reading journal articles about the best laxatives. For now, I just wait, and eat prunes...
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