Life is constantly changing. I think they say there are stages or phases in life. Three distinct phases are often referred to when discussing life stages. They are childhood, adulthood, and old age. Does anyone ever refer to life before and after an IBS diagnosis? There are life changes that you often don’t want as an identifying moment in time.
Only a person with an IBS diagnosis would refer to their life stages in that way. The before and after. I can certainly remember only needing to go poo once a day. I was a morning shitter. Power shitter. Get in, get out. You could set your clock to my bowel movements they were so precise.
Then things changed. What even was it? What was the defining point, when was that moment when I would no longer be the power shitter? What was the cause of my demise?
Big things are scary, life changes top the list
There was a big life change. My spousal unit quit his job and started working part-time where I was working until he found a full-time job. It was an adjustment in the beginning. I don’t want to make light of it. It was a BIG adjustment in the beginning. We rode to work, we ate lunch together, we went home together, ate dinner together, and went to bed together. That is a lot of togetherness for two people who were used to seeing each other for just a few hours in the evenings.
I was stressed in the beginning. I couldn’t do the radio station flipping like I like to do. I couldn’t run the heater on full blast in the mornings (my temperature tends to run cold ALL of the time). When I was ready to leave work in the afternoon, he would often be talking to buddies and hold us up. So yeah, changes to my little daily life were set in motion.
There is not a time point in this period that sticks out, two weeks into this new situation or two months into it. But I know I started needing emergency stops on the way to work. I could make it to a gas station in the early days. There was an ability to hold it, unlike today’s times. But this is when things changed for my bowels, somewhere in this period, the IBS showed up.
As you get used to one life change, another happens
We did this work at the same place routine for over a year. The emergency diarrhea only got worse. But I did get to where I enjoyed the ride to work with Ryan and having his company. It was sad when he went to work somewhere else and we didn’t get to spend all the hours in the day together.
The diarrhea never stopped. It only proved to become more urgent. That is about when I decided to see a doctor.
Something serious going on
I had been reading about what might be wrong with me. Chron’s disease, IBS, SIBO, maybe just a bad bacteria. Some of my bowel symptoms could possibly lead to a cancer diagnosis. I started to worry that maybe I wasn’t taking my diarrhea seriously enough. So, I did what I needed to do to put my mind at ease and saw a doctor.
I discussed my bowels with a stranger. Then had some blood work done.
Come to find out, I am as healthy as an ox. Imagine that. An ox with a touch of diarrhea. Ew. Not a good combination. But here we are. Navigating what the doctor called “a touch of IBS” hmmm. On average, seven trips to the bathroom every morning, water shits (as I like to call them) bloat, nausea, and excessive gas. Urgency like nobody’s business. And this is just “a touch of IBS”.
There is no cure for IBS. It is a touch-and-go situation. If you are feeling good today, then go on. If you are down tomorrow, you have a flare-up, then rest and reset. Figure out the good, figure out the bad, but just keep moving forward. This is part of life, life changes.
Was there a defining moment in your IBS journey?
Have you sought out medical help?
