One very bad night....

Let me start by saying that yesterday i called in sick to work. I originally wanted to have pictures to go along with this that would help illustrate the story, but due to how slow the Libraries network is....getting pictures just isn't doable right now. Back to the story....allow me to explain the situation:

My breakfast that morning consisted of eggs and cheese. My lunch was cheese pizza. For dinner I had a plate (or 2) of 4 cheese lasagna with a side of garlic and cheese toast. It was only after dinner that I realized that perhaps I shouldn’t have had all that cheese.

Around 7:30 that evening I was sitting on the couch. While watching my son play around living room it hit me....the stomach wrenching gas pain that attacks from nowhere. It was as if a roman candle had just been set off inside my stomach. The gas at that instant was so bad I couldn’t release it from either end (if you don't get it....wait. It'll hit you soon enough); I could only ball up in pain. After a few seconds the pain was gone. Having turned red all over my face and neck, the wife asks if I’m ok. I wasn’t sure. But I knew if I stayed on the couch much longer we would have a terrible mess to clean up…so I darted for the nearest bathroom. Being that he had about a four step head start along with me now being able to only take small steps in fear that if I ran in full stride I would prematurely “lose my luggage”….Ben beat me to the bathroom and locked the door. So I ran across the house to the other bathroom in all out agony.

Once perched on my throne it was like the philharmonic orchestra decided to bust out into a full set. Loud bangs here, sonic booms there, an occasional gust of wind from over in the flute section....but nothing of any substance. The gas rumbled on with no end in site.

Around 10:30 the wife comes to me to check on me. By this time I had made it into the other bathroom. She brings me medicine. “Gas-Ex” the box reads. Sounds like a great idea...at the time. I had more gas than a Valero Gas Station, so down the hatch the medicine went. Being that I was only about 12 moves from finishing the Sodoku puzzle I was working on I decided to sit there and finish it out before attempting to retreat to bed. Good thing I did. It only took a few short minutes for the Gas-Ex to kick in. I glanced at the box. Sure enough it read in small print “Instant Action”. I could see the turmoil quickly coming to an end.

The orchestra was in all out Chorus mode. Rumbles here, thundering there. Nothing was soft or quiet at this point in time. The “music” was fast and it was furious. And apparently it was out of tune. My master bathroom is in the master bedroom. And well, once the chorus picked up, my wife left the room. She muttered something about being too loud and waking her up. I wasn’t paying too much attention as it was also time for one of what would be many emergency flushes. I was wrong. The situation was far from over.

There must have been 4 or 5 episodes of these loose bowel movements. Not only did I get near the point of dehydration, but my 2 year old son (who I guess was also awoken) learned the phrase “loose bowel, got the runs” that night.

The wife comes to the restroom again. This time she was holding a box of Imodium Advance. On the box it reads “Rapid Relief of Diarrhea”. Thank goodness. That’s exactly what I needed. The box said to take 2 at the next bowel loss, 1 after the second loss, and one more additional pill after the 3rd episode. I cut to the chase and took 3 right off. This was no time for waiting games. I needed relief and I needed it right then.

At that point my body was fighting through the combination of a large amount of cheese, Gas-Ex and Imodium. The cheese was doing its best to stop me up, the Gas-Ex was trying to reverse that, and well...the Imodium was trying to reverse the reversing that the Gas-Ex was performing on the cheese.

I thought I was about to explode.

And so I did.

I’m not sure exactly what happened next. But I do know I cried out in pain. I’m not sure what giving birth feels like, but I’m guessing this was as close as I’ll ever get. The last bout only lasted about 3 minutes. That’s 3 minutes I never want to go through ever, ever again.

Needless to say, I'm back at work today and all is good.