I really thought it was the stir-fry.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jim had leftovers and I was on my own for a Wednesday dinner.\u00a0 I went to a bookstore and bought some more reading material, then went to a stir-fry and yogurt place. I ordered my usual with tofu and broccoli – adding in cilantro and pepper flakes for a kick, along with sweet soy sauce.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was, as usual, delicious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at around 4 AM, I woke up with an urgent<\/em> need to use the bathroom. \u00a0 I grabbed some good bathroom reading and took a seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it was\u2026explosive. \u00a0(sorry) When I was finally done, I flushed, washed my hands thoroughly, took some pepto, and went back to bed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday morning I still wasn\u2019t feeling 100%, but I went on into work. I found a disused bathroom to defile<\/em> later that morning and had another bout late afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jim texted me that the cafeteria where he works was offering \u201cwalking tacos\u201d and did I want one? They say hindsight is 20\/20, but I really knew then it was a bad idea. But, he doesn\u2019t often offer to get dinner and I didn\u2019t want to turn him down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I ate the taco. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At around 2 AM, I was up again with more diarrhea.\u00a0 I went downstairs to get some water when I was done and got nauseous.\u00a0 I made it to the downstairs bathroom and while I was squatting there throwing up my tacos, the pressure made me soil myself.\u00a0 (sorry, again) Not a lot, but any is too much.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was done throwing up, I went back upstairs and washed out my underwear and then washed myself. Hoping that was the last of it, I put on clean underwear and went back to bed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I woke up at my regular time on Friday and I was in bad shape.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have anything on my calendar and would have worked from home that day anyway – so I set my out-of-office and sent an email to take a rare sick day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I then spent all day Friday mostly napping. Jim got me some gatorade when he got home and I worked my way through that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For dinner, I had some crackers and yogurt – under the assumption that my gut biome was trashed and needed rebuilding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was down for the count most of Saturday, but by Sunday I was feeling a little better. Jim thought it might be the stomach parasite that was going around and wanted me to get an appointment with a doctor to get checked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday I was back online and working from home – and managed to get an appointment for later that day. I logged off early and headed across town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I did the pre-check-in, paid my co-pay when I arrived, and sat to wait. They called Anthony right away, but it was a different Anthony and I sat back down. Then they called Anthony again and this time it was for me. They took me back to a cubicle to check my temperature, then back out to the waiting room. Then I got called again and saw a nurse to get my BP and go over my symptoms, then I waited again for the nurse practitioner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When he showed up we went over my symptoms and the timeline. And then the only good part of the whole experience happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I told him I\u2019d been living on crackers, gatorade, and yogurt. He said that they don\u2019t suggest dairy for stomach issues like diarrhea and nausea. I counted with, \u201cWell, I was thinking about restoring my gut biome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He paused for a moment to take that in, then said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s not a bad idea. But, too much of the lactobacteria can be bad too,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, whatever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He then told me that to be sure of what was going on, they would need to send a sample to a lab to be tested and I could pick up the kit that day and get the results 2-3 days later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The visit concluded, I was directed to the checkout where I made arrangements to get the sample kit. The system took a few awkward minutes to catch up, then she sent me to lab work window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They handed me a bag with the kit and explained what I needed to do to collect the sample and return in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I reluctantly took the kit and headed home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Monday night, before I went to bed, I felt like I needed to use the bathroom. I peed first as instructed, flushed, and washed my hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I had to put a disposable plastic bowl on the seat and sit on that. The plan was to poop in the bowl, then transfer the sample from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got ready to go, but instead of another liquid mess, what came out was mostly<\/em> solid.\u00a0 It was difficult to pass and I had to sit at a weird angle to do it.\u00a0 When I thought I was done I moved the bowl and cleaned myself up.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, the transfer. I had two little vials with liquid that had small spoons in the lids. I needed to use the spoon to transfer the contents of the bowl to the vial until I filled it to a certain line. Once the first was done, I did the second the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there was another plain plastic cup with a lid. I had to use a wooden spoon to transfer the rest of the sample to the cup, then seal it up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The bowl and the stick went in a trashbag and I washed my hands – a lot – again. I took the trash outside and took a long shower. The samples went in a bag and into the fridge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I got up early the next morning to drop the samples off before work.\u00a0 The office opened at 7, but the lab area didn’t open until 7:30. It was a boring wait – aren’t they all? – with my bag of poop vials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was mortified to hand them over, but it was just another Tuesday for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By Wednesday I had the results – though the first update from My Chart was negative. It was soon followed by a positive result and then a prescription text message came in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I had been planning a trip to Illinois to see family for the weekend and though I wasn\u2019t looking forward to the drive I was looking forward to seeing everyone. I started to feel worse that evening and decided not to go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday, I started feeling much worse while working from home – though I did leave at lunchtime to pick the prescription. I had to lay down a few times and make a bathroom run. I also threw up again. It didn\u2019t help that the air was bad from wildfires up north. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Friday, I was much much worse and though I wasn\u2019t driving I still took the day off to rest. I needed it too – I was a mess. The air was a little better on Friday, but I still spent the day indoors to rest. I did get a call from the health department since the doctor had to report my parasite to the county. They sent me a survey and by that point signs were pointing to lettuce served at Taco Bell – where I am a frequent diner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Saturday I lay around the house again, though I did go outside to get a little sun. By degrees my poop started to recover and so did my strength. I was also taking in more solid food – and yogurt – and starting to feel like myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By Sunday I was well enough to mow the yard and Monday back online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m still not quite 100% – but I can fake it well enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I traveled this past weekend to see my niece for her birthday and then had another worrisome bathroom trip – though I think that was the pesto sandwich from Panera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through all of this, I had Jim worried. It\u2019s not like me to get sick – really sick – and I was down for the count more than once. I also felt like my body was betraying me and my cast -iron stomach was letting me down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess, though, that my constitution protected me from the worst of it. I was careful to keep my fluids up and got plenty of rest. I didn\u2019t end up in the hospital and only got a little dehydrated once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, it could have been much worse. And I can take or leave lettuce for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I really thought it was the stir-fry.\u00a0 Jim had leftovers and I was on my own for a Wednesday dinner.\u00a0 I went to a bookstore and bought some more reading material, then went to a stir-fry and yogurt place. I ordered my usual with tofu and broccoli – adding in cilantro and pepper flakes for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"1","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3400,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399\/revisions\/3400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}