Health update. Gross TMI ahead, read at your own risk!

Now that I've updated Mom, I guess I can blog about this. I got a talking-to earlier for Twittering about my CT without telling her first. Kinda sent her into a little bit of a panic, 'cause I hadn't given her a heads up before. Sorry, Mom. Forgive me?


I've been having chronic pain issues ever since my surgery (and before, but I'm not counting that right now). I've been in pain that has not resolved, limits my activity, and generally affects my quality of life to the point where depression is becoming an issue. That's just a quick rundown. I don't even want to begin to get into the details of it.

Basically, the surgery that I had to repair this hernia was supposed to resolve the pain issues, due to the fact that the hernia was compressing a nerve and had caused irreversible damage to it. That nerve had a portion of it removed during my surgery. Hence, no pain, right?


Wrong.


So I saw my surgeon for yet ANOTHER follow up on Monday. He was concerned that during the surgery, not enough of the damaged nerve had been removed and that was the source of my ongoing pain. He started using words like, "pain management specialists" and "neurontin" and "nerve ablation by injection" which are all psuedonyms for "long-ass pain management that may or may not work, possibly affecting you for the rest of your life."


Not good. Not good at ALL.


So he decided to get a follow-up CT to make sure that the repair was holding, there was no recurrent hernia, no infection, etc. etc. etc.


I had that done this morning. The diagnosis?



I'm full of shit.







Literally.




Like y'all needed at CT to tell me that, right? No, seriously, here's where the TMI comes in, so for you queasy folks, feel free not to read ahead.



I had so much stool backup that I was practically impacted. Seriously. He showed me the CT. There was more poo in my colon than almost humanly possible. I was more full of shit than Rod Blagojevich. Apparently I got "backed up" after I stopped taking my post-operative stool softeners. That combined with the pain medication makes for a big 'ole colon full of poo, which is pressing on the hernia repair and causing pain.


Poop. My problem is poop.


Only me. This could only happen to me. The good news is, it's an easy fix. (if that is indeed where the pain is coming from, we'll know in a few hours). The bad news? Um. I had to drink the Go-Lytely stuff that you have to take before a colonoscopy (which is extremely disgusting, by the way). To um, clean things out? And that? Is extremely uncomfortable. Let's just say that I am only a few steps away from the bathroom right now. And don't plan on moving very far away from it for awhile.

The other potentially bad news? Even though my surgeon is pretty sure that this is where the pain is coming from, if he's wrong, we're back to the whole pain-management pathway. Which is not supposed to happen to people my age.

So please please PLEASE everyone, keep me in your prayers that the, um, elimination does the trick.

If I'm pain free in the morning after the, uh, cleansing, then we're in the clear.

If not?

God help us.


I'm praying this is the answer. I'm sick of not only feeling like crap (pardon the pun) but I'm tired of talking about it. And not being able to be myself. I would kill to be able to work out and have energy and a metabolism again.

The way it's going right now, if I eat more than a single spinach leaf a day, I'm going to turn into Jabba the Hut.

And then nobody could see my cute shoes. Also? Brown is so not my color.