Shit Happened. Frequently…
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Uncategorized
The last couple of days have certainly demonstrated to me that strange and unexpected things happen when situations are abnormal. However, some of what you experience is caused by others, and some of it is your own fault…
Being a patient person, as well as being a patient there, once I had given my blood samples back at the YUMC, I made my way home to Jinju (in unhurried fashion, as the Air Force had been kind enough to give us a few days off while our Korean co-workers were out and about around the province, looking for potential new grist for the high school’s mill when the current cohort disappears) and thinking: “Ah, it will take a couple of days for them to process those.”
So I waited.
And waited.
And a week later, I was still waiting…
Finally, the annual Buddha’s Birthday public holiday came around, almost two weeks later, and I would keep thinking to myself: “Hmm, wonder if the results were… not quite good?” and resolving to contact the Professor the following morning to find out.
In the post-operative phase, there is really nothing much to do (in the absence of anything requiring treatment) other than quarterly blood sampling and testing; only if there were signs of the thing having metastasised could you reasonably expect additional treatment along the lines of chemotherapy, and far be it from me to suggest that anything like that is even remotely desirable, except to note in passing, perhaps, that if all my hair fell out as a result of treatment, nobody would notice these days… But there’s the thing: in the absence of any further information, doubt constantly nags you. Are you in the clear, or not?
So, in the bus on my way to work, I texted the Prof and asked him about this, but dear Reader, not for that alone, oh no! You see, my single day of holiday, when I had planned to spend most of the day, er, sleeping, was marred by a gross (in every sense) gut malfunction. For several days, I had been avoiding the consumption of more than a little food, with the intention that I would not have to make frequent visits to the bathroom whilst not at work. The Professor had issued me with a three-month supply of Lopmin capsules and dosage instructions, and at this point, I had been following his bidding religiously for almost a fortnight. Then suddenly, my Poo Hole developed a dribble. This was not so unusual, as it had been a frequent happening while the FDD was in place, as indeed immediately thereafter, due to the fact that I had misunderstood the Prof’s previous instructions about what dose to take… but this was ridiculous. I couldn’t even lie down for any appreciable length of time before it was bothering me to take it to the shitter, but very little was coming out.
Then, early this morning, just as I was starting to worry that I would have to wear a double diaper again, it started to come but ohhh, dear, very hard and stiff. You see, dear Reader, while the upper portion of the intestine is geared towards post-stomach digestion of food, the lower portion is concerned primarily with dehydrating the remains, so that the body as a whole does not lose too much water too rapidly through defecation. Previous experience of delaying the departure of unwanted stools had convinced me that so doing was asking for trouble, as the rectum would then continue removing water until the stuff became stiff, hard and painful to pass; and that is precisely what, er, came to pass this morning. I had to go to work with a nasty, hard, stiff turd stuck in what remains of my once-capacious rectum, immobile and (truth to tell) somewhat painful; the jerky movements of the bus to work were hardly helpful. It wasn’t until the break between lessons this morning that I was finally able (with much grunting, groaning and moaning) to force the bastard out. After which a whole load came out more easily (but still not entirely painlessly), but I am sure that there is more waiting. You bet.
The Lopmin capsules I had been prescribed were (according to the Professor) intended to relax the part of the large intestine which had been grafted onto the forlorn remnant of my Poo Hole, thereby allowing it to slowly expand and eventually render a very similar level of storage function to that in the intact, pre-operative gut – this being necessary because the lumen diameter of the large intestine, which was attached to the anus during the operation, was much narrower than that of the segment which was removed; there was a diameter mismatch and hence, relaxation of the gut wall muscles (with Lopmin) plus time (he suggested about three to five years) should eventually cause the gut wall to stretch, hence restoring most of the lost functionality. The only trouble seems to have been that he was somewhat over-zealous in the dosing, with the result that the residence time for the average turd increased to the point where water withdrawal was maximised and so, alas, the necessary softness (for ease of passage, shall we say) was minimised. The result was much straining and pain… I have no doubt that it is in such circumstances that the Urban Legends of “Spiky Turds” emerge, the existence of which, paradoxically perhaps, the medical profession always seemed happy to deny (at least back in the UK).
To cut a long story short, after delivering the good news about the serological work, he suggested that I should reduce the individual doses to between one and three capsules, as required. Oh believe me, I certainly shall… during the first two weeks, I shat irregularly and probably only about two or three times a week, and when it finally emerged from my Nether Region, it tended to be large, stiff and difficult to disgorge. That Lopmin stuff is wayyy too strong... imagine shitting bits of dry, fossilised tree trunk. Like that.
Anyway, to conclude: despite the Prof’s admonition to avoid alcohol (and because of my training in biomedical science, I do know where he is coming from), I feel that some celebration of that type is due now. And at the weekend, come to think of it. Not crazy drinking, but just a little of what I have been mainly missing since last November.
Those were the outcomes of the first quarterly tests since my discharge from the hospital. The next tests will be due in August, and hopefully will return the same results.
