Too Much Information

After heart surgery, each new day seems like a precious gift; then you get constipated.
Constipation is the sick man's burden; a scatological limbo between light and dark stools; the evil magician's rock that must be abracadabra'd away from the secret cave's entrance before the treasures within can be revealed. If I sold prune juice by the bottle I would brand it 'Open Sesame.'
Laxatives, of course, are essential: bypass patients are not allowed to strain when sitting on the toilet, and so liquid plumber for the stomach must be employed. I prefer milk of magnesia, but only because it sounds like the sort of mythical elixir that Jason and the Argonauts might have sought. The embarrassing phrase "an enema," meanwhile, merely conjures unprepossessing mental pictures of an especially gelatinous jellyfish floating idly in a polluted ocean: not a very promising image when you really want a manic octopus stirring up the sea bed.
But personal comfort is not the only reason to encourage successful defecations. Like ancient Roman priests predicting the future by appraising the entrails of sacrificial beasts, modern doctors examine their patient's bowel movements for biological indicators. The shape, color, consistency and regularity of such human waste apparently reveals a great deal about the health of the humans responsible for evacuating these samples. Please feel free to Google the many possible grisly conclusions that can be drawn from such investigations in your time.
At any rate, it is amazing how smug and self-satisfied a patient feels when, after a lengthy spell of frustrating constipation, he at last regains the approval of his doctors by completing a successful bowel movement. His entire being is suffused with an almost impish glee - break out the toadstool wine, we'll celebrate. Anything is possible now, even that complete recuperation he's often heard the nurses talk about.

Comments

[Mike]

Hah! It could be worse, you might have needed a male catheter for, you know, micturation (I don't mean to be indelicate, but you started it). The sensation of having a stout plastic tube inserted by a nurse who is nostalgic for the days of the Inquisition (the progress of this instrument into the body can be clearly felt) is the worst sensation I have ever stood still for. Dental work doesn't hold a candle to it, nor does post-surgery pain. Count your blessings, and get well soon.

[Giric]

If this is a moment in which we may bare all about out worst moments or memories than I will share one as well. My mother was a health nut back in the day when it was a new idea and few their were who followed it. Her, "Guru," of choice was this pale thin woman of indiscriminate age, who believed in such hideous things as enamas and coffee colonics.
The sight of that ugly red rubber bottle hanging in our bathroom, from a bent coat hanger, on the shower curtain rod, was capable of curing, by sight, any thoughts of constipation my young bowel might have conjured up. Tho we used to laugh because our religion forbade the drinking of coffee and yet my mother and her crazy cronies were mainlining it up their bums. I don't believe there is a quicker way to, "caffeinate," yourself, short of an i.v.

P.S. Please refrain from laughing at this if it is considered injurious to your condition. The entire story above is not fiction.

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Everybody should care about themselves and follow up their health condition each day. It is like in a saying - an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

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True, above comment, and the saying can even get more specific- an apple a day keeps the dentist away.

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I hope you get well soon. I know its hard to have constipation when you can't strain because of your heart ailments but it will get better in time.

[Chiropractor Rozelle pinched nerve]

I hope you can still cope with your illness after all of this. I will pray for your good health.

[downers grove dentist]

I noticed that this post was written on June. How are you now? aor you ok now? I hope you are well.