Feeling Crook

Warning: This article contains intimate digestive details. If you have a delicate constitution, you may want to pass on this entry. I know some of you are going to read it despite my warning and will probably never look at me in quite the same way again. Just be happy I have not included any pictures.



I normally have a stalwart digestive system. I typically eat anything and everything and with one notable exception in Mexico, rarely suffer ill consequences. Of course, I personally do not consider outrageous flatulence to be an ill consequence. I find farting to be more of an endlessly entertaining by-product of digestion.

However, last Sunday afternoon my lower intestines were suddenly seized by the most outrageous pain I have ever experienced (with one notable exception in Mexico). The entire lining of my digestive tract was ablaze. It felt like rodents had climbed up my ass and made a nest inside my transverse colon. By nightfall I was in tears.

“You probably just need to take a big shit,” said my husband, clearly all awash with sympathy.

I followed his advice the next morning, but experienced no relief from my agony. My entire abdomen was tender and it hurt to the touch. The simple act of walking sent spasms of pain through my gut with each footfall. I called in sick to work and spent the next two days in bed.

Come Wednesday, I was still feeling quite delicate, but I was bored to tears (Australian day time television is a horror show) and now my back was sore from lying down, so I decided to go to work anyway. For the next few days, I limped around the lab with a distinctive slouch in an effort to cushion my internal organs against the pain that still gripped my digestive tract, prompting my boss to inquire as to whether I might have a giardia infection. I dismissed the idea, since I had not been drinking from any mountain streams lately and because I did not have diarrhea – in my mind two inseparable prerequisites for a giardia infestation diagnosis.

But then, an extraordinary thing happened. I took a shit. Nothing extraordinary about that. What was extraordinary was the color. Because of my adventurous eating habits, I have produced a veritable rainbow of excrement, my personal favourite being a brilliant atomic red after eating some chili-lime-peanuts in Mexico (note: this was not related to the ‘notable exception’ mentioned above), made especially memorable because it was produced al fresco in an arroyo during a camping trip. However, I have never before fabricated a turd that was such an intense shade of yellow. The color was so striking, that it immediately sent me to the Internet in search of answers.

Now, I know the Internet is home to numerous unfathomable obsessions, and I fully expected to come across plenty of shit-fetish websites. What I did NOT expect to find on the Internet was a thoughtful and intellectual community of people who like to engage in outrageously humorous discussions of one of the human body’s most basic functions. Which brings me to the real purpose of this article: I would like to introduce you to my new favourite web-site.

http://www.poopreport.com/

This site is certainly not for everyone, but if you enjoy hearing gruesome details about excremental misadventures, then you will certainly find this site entertaining. If you’ve ever bragged about the quantity or quality of your own movements (mom), then you just might find a few humbling anecdotes amongst the links. And if you love really bad puns, you will not be disappointed.

After wasting the better part of two working days goofing around on my new favourite website, I eventually learned that yellow poop has two primary causes. One is a harmless condition called Gilbert’s Syndrome involving the improper breakdown of red blood cells. I also learned that yellow poop (especially if it is greasy and floaty, ahem) is a classic symptom of a giradia infection! Further research on giardia uncovered the fact that one may not have any or all of the symptoms and that it can be contracted from other sources besides contaminated mountain streams, such as swimming pools or Sydney Water.

As much as I enjoy discussing pooping issues, I am absolutely appalled at the idea of producing the stool sample required for an official diagnosis of giardiasis. According to the CDC, the infection may run its course in 2 to 6 weeks, and that one of the side effects can be dramatic weight loss of up to 10% of one’s body weight – which just so happens to be the amount of weight I gained last month eating super burritos and bacon while in America.

Hmmm, poop in a bag and take antibiotics or suffer a few cramps and lose weight?

I’ll have to ask my new on-line community what they think…meanwhile, I have been slouching around the house singing “Oh, Giardia!” to the tune of the Canadian national anthem.