vituperation

All day Monday I felt kind of bloated. Fat, swollen, and bloated, actually.

You know the kind of feeling I mean? Like I’d pigged out, that completely stuffed feeling you have after a Thanksgiving-sized meal. That night, we went to my dad’s house for Christmas celebrations, and I couldn’t eat too much because I felt so full — despite having eaten nothing all day but a small bowl of bean soup.

Monday was also the day I had to clean up a chicken’s butt and got so grossed out by it. Usually, things like that don’t get to me, but something about the smell coming off that buff made me seriously want to blow chunks. In retrospect, I understand why I felt so nauseated. Something appears to have been…gestating, for lack of a better word, deep down in my guts.

At my dad’s on Monday night, I felt like crap. Tired, worn out, and kind of feverish. The whole night, I sat off to one side with my eyes closed, wishing for it to be over. I ate a little bit of dinner, and skipped dessert. Anyone who knows me knows that’s a red flag. I have a sweet tooth the size of Canada.

I felt similar to the way I did a few weeks ago when I got a one-day stomach thing, only without the puking and runs I had that time. I checked my temperature when we got home and sure enough, it was just under 100. I took a couple of Tylenol and felt fine Tuesday morning.

That day we went to my sister’s house for breakfast and Christmas celebrations with my mom. I still felt all bloaty and gross, and while I ate some breakfast, I didn’t eat as much as I nearly do. Other than feeling obscenely full, I felt fine. I wasn’t tired, and I definitely didn’t feel feverish. Just full, as though everything I ate was sitting there not being digested.

The diarrhea started shortly after we got home. Through it all, I felt perfectly fine, except for the grossly bloated feeling. I didn’t eat the rest of the day Tuesday.

The first thing I did yesterday morning when I woke up was run for the bathroom. I still felt swollen and bloated, too, even though it had been almost 24 hours since I’d eaten anything. That feeling started to taper off in the early afternoon, I guess because I was running out of stuff to, uh, run. I was finally getting a little hungry, too. It was a weird feeling, because I felt full and bloated at the same time I felt kind of hungry. I ate the lunch I took to work and enjoyed it, except for the part where it made me feel so full I thought I was going to throw up.

I was hungry by dinnertime yesterday, too. For real hungry. I ate a can of mushroom soup and some saltines, then spent the rest of the night feeling grotesque and fat. But, no diarrhea because nothing had had time to get through me. That was kind of nice.

What wasn’t nice was how full I felt. It was like a junk food Friday when I have a little too much, and spend the night almost in pain. It was like having a bowling ball in my innards all evening, and it actually hurt a little to lay on my back in bed because it stretched the skin too tightly across my gut.

Those of you who enjoy gross things may like this. My nausea / overstuffed / gross feeling crept into my sleep last night, and I woke at one point from a dream where I was burping a baby until he puked up sour milk…and then I ate it.

You’re welcome for that. It made me feel the same way.

The diarrhea was back this morning, though. Just like yesterday, my first And again, I feel perfectly fine except for the full feeling, and not really wanting to eat anything. Heck, I’m not even getting a raw ass because I’m drinking enough to make sure and keep things diluted. But, I’m getting kind of tired of it, so I started googling around to see what might be the culprit. I’ve had plenty of 1-day bouts of diarrhea, but this is the first time as an adult it’s lasted this long.

What I found is that the most common cause of the runs in the entire world is a bacteria called compylobacter. It’s often found in poultry, and people usually get it by eating chicken meat that came in contact with intestines during processing. Somewhere along the line, poop got on the meat. Since I haven’t been slaughtering chickens, I suspect I got it by accidentally ingesting some of the poop I seem to get on myself daily. Seriously, if I knew I’d be covered in chicken shit on such a regular basis, I would have rethought the decision to get chickens in the first place.

If that’s not an argument for washing one’s hands more, I don’t know what is.

There’s no real treatment for compylbacteriosis in adults unless it’s really bad. You just have to let it run its course, which usually takes about a week. I’m thankful I’m not in pain or pooping blood, which some people do. I’m just ready for my life to get back on solid ground, so to speak.

Gross as it is to think about, I can one-up myself. I got hepatitis A several years ago, I suspect from a Mexican restaurant. For that, I had to eat some PEOPLE POOP.

My name is Fred, and I believe in giving out too much information.

GUILTY

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom.