Tuesday, in the early morning, I was back in an emergency room bed for what I feared might be heart pain. It was bad enough to force me to spend more money on the ER, even though I had doubts about what was really wrong. Heart pain is not worth making a mistake on. I am not ready to be dead.
Fortunately, it was not my heart. That was the first thing they eliminated… for good reason. Suspect number two was one of my two gallstones, which might have been guilty of causing my atypical chest pain. They used a sonogram to determine that there was no inflammation around the dislocated gallstone. The third culprit turned out to be a hard possibility. My colon was clogged with hard poo, probably clinging to the poo pockets in my diverticulosis.
Diverticulosis is a common condition that can develop in your colon, especially as you age. It means that little pouches form in the inside lining of your colon. They usually don’t cause any problems. But rarely, they may bleed or develop an infection (diverticulitis).
So, this all gets nasty. Hard poop is distending my belly. Pooping, which used to be regular, daily, and easy, is now difficult, painful, and time-consuming. And possibly life-threatening. You can laugh, but for three days now, I have been straining, moaning, and sweating five separate times a day to push out tiny, hard packets of poo to keep my innards from turning green and causing me to die in a ball of pain and smelly poo.
I am taking four new medications, only one of which is a laxative, meant to help me stay alive long enough to spend lots of money on gastroenterologists.
Catch a Falling Star 