Today, I made the bad decision to have two chicken pot pies for lunch. Less than an hour after eating the delicious mixture of crispy crust, thick gravy, chunks of chicken and a few tasty peas and carrots, I was quarantined in the bathroom, gasping through the 'hold on until your knuckles are white' cramping of IBS. (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
When I first began having IBS five years ago, I could still eat nearly everything I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. Now, food has become the enemy. Eating isn't safe anymore. One of the very few things human beings require to keep living is fuel - food turned into energy. I feel lost as to what to give my body when it repels and expels that which it needs, on an ever changing whim.
IBS is painful and frustrating. When the first thing you look for in a new restaurant is where the restroom is located or when you're afraid to go out to eat in the first place because public bathroom pooping is sketchy at best, you realize this is changing your life.
Nobody wants to be in the bathroom at Walmart & live through the embarrassment of nuclear butt explosions while some poor mother is rushing to wash her toddler's hands at the sink so they can get the hell out of there.
And then there is your family, waiting at the table to pay the check and leave while you're figuratively chained to a cold, leg numbing toilet until there's nothing left in your digestive tract. You know that they're used to it, they understand and yet you're hunched over, tapping out apologies and SOS messages for more toilet paper on the only link with the world for the next half an hour, your phone.
When I was nine years old, my mother abandoned both my four year old brother and myself. How does that relate to IBS? Well, both are super crappy. (Pun intended - humor gets me through.) But seriously, I mention it because my mom and her sisters all have similar digestive problems. This seems to be hereditary and it truly angers me that someone who couldn't be bothered to raise their own child has the ability to pass on something so awful to live with.
I know life isn't fair but there gets to be a point where you stand in the middle of a storm called Fibromyalgia, IBS and a bunch of other stuff and you say, "Why me?" Genetics doesn't offer comfort, nor mercy. Nor does a padded toilet seat.
