Several years ago I started the journey to figure out what the heck was up with my GI issues. I was embarrassed, impatient, and felt like surely I could fix it. I should be able to fix it right? Why couldn't I fix it? I soon gave up.
In 2021 I started having trouble with incontinence of varying kinds, and I admitted defeat. I talked to my doctor and told her I was ready to get to the bottom of my GI issues once and for all (pun totally intended). I spent the next four years doing lots of tests, various diets, pelvic floor therapy, and even counseling. Apparently stress can kill you in different ways, including via your gut. Who knew?
Thankfully, at the beginning of the journey I was working from home due to the pandemic. Things definitely got worse for a while as I went through the hoops. As I transitioned back to working in-person I didn't bring up the utter hell my GI issues were giving me. At that time I worked with super supportive people. I was just incredibly embarrassed. Incontinence is a pretty taboo thing to talk about. In addition to that taboo problem, I was often experiencing extraordinary fatigue, bloating, and pain. Weirdly enough, 2022-2023 were my two favorite years working at the library. I think all the library happiness balanced out the tummy troubles and gave me something positive to focus on. The library job and people I worked with (99.9% of them) for sure saved my butt (again, pun intended) during the time I needed it most.
The first GI doctor I had was excellent, but he had settled on this cycle of periodically wiping out the bacteria in my gut a couple times a year. It was expensive and the symptoms always came back, sometimes in just a few weeks! I've had a few colonoscopies over the past few years, and for a couple weeks after each of them, I felt the best I've ever felt. I was so desperate for relief I even brought up the idea of doing a colonoscopy prep every so often!
So then I asked my primary doctor if I could be referred to a different GI doctor, and she was 100% on board with it. I immediately clicked with this new GI doctor, and he started me on a very rocky path to some relief. He tried a few things, one of which was a medication that drastically improved my discomfort and pain, but the other symptoms were persistently hanging on. As we all know one of those symptoms makes living a normal life very challenging. This doctor didn't give up on me though. He referred me to the Mayo clinic, and at the beginning of July I got the call to come on up.
I have spent the majority of the summer figuring out my gut issues, and I feel like I have an excellent plan that I understand. The first thing I had to do was put away my feelings about taking medication for possibly the rest of my life (even something small and harmless like the one I'm taking was tripping me up). I really wanted the fix to be solely related to diet or something I could fix. The second thing I had to do was be open to anything and surrender my embarrassment. Lastly, it's a lot of hard work and I'm still trying to understand it all, but I feel like I have some hope for a future that doesn't involve always making sure there's a restroom nearby. I am willing to put in the hard work and ask uncomfortable questions.
I have been reading this excellent book: The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, and just this morning there was a passage I read that stood out:
"Embracing our common humanity is understanding that we all encounter pain, we all get lost, we all have drama in our family – we all have so much happening behind the scenes. The more you see your problems as uncommon, unrelatable, and unnatural, the closer you move towards self-pity, not self compassion."
During this whole process I learned just how common my stomach issues are. Unfortunately, I was totally mortified about them for such a long time, I made them 1000 times worse. There are so many people with similar issues, there are two floors devoted to them at the Mayo in Rochester! If anyone reading this or anyone you know has chronic constipation/diarrhea (or both!), it is not normal or ok. Ask for help!
There's a lot of hard work ahead, but I'm ever so grateful for the help and also for Robert taking off the time to be with me for all the weird, exhausting, hopeful, gross, powerful, life-changing stuff I've been a part of this summer. I'm also grateful that my gut issues are not life-threatening. We have officially knocked out all the super serious things, and the relief I feel about that is immense.
Such a serious post, I think it's time for a few pictures. All appropriate, only some poo!
Rochester has this incredibly long pedestrian bridge on the Douglas Trail. Robert and I walked the lake loop to access it, and then he walked back to the car while I explored the bridge. Robert said to call him when I reached the end of it, and he would come pick me up.
Well I never found the end because the darn thing led to a brewery - Little Thistle. There may not be pots of gold at the end of every rainbow, but apparently there's at least one brewery at the end of a trail (at least that's where the trail ended for me). I'm pretty much ruined now. When I called Robert he was not at all surprised by my find.
Speaking of being completely ruined - when I popped into the main Rochester library and asked for a library card for my collection, the person working there librarian gave me not only the current colors, they also went into the back for a couple old ones lying around.
Books like this were everywhere, including this board book. Rochester definitely had the most positive poop culture I've ever been a part of.
We had Chinese one night. I don't remember the food, but I did keep this. How many might forces have been there for me? Too many to count.
Speaking of food, we did find the best places, because that's what we do!
Brussels Sprouts from First Meeting Noodle in Rochester:
Borscht (the best I've ever had) from Kramarczuk's Sausage Co. in Minneapolis, MN:
The Mayo Clinic is connected to many shops and restaurants in a crazy indoor maze. Someone mentioned that they moved there in the winter and only spent a few minutes outside. She was able to walk mostly from her home to her job at the Mayo clinic without venturing outside! We did a lot of walking while we waited for appointments. The best place to eat was Saladworks, which was a build your own salad place with roasted vegetable options.
This coffee place, Qamaria, had something called pistachio sauce. Here's the difference between pistachio syrup and sauce. It's very simple. If it's sauce, you will want to bathe in it. It was an otherworldly experience. Each sip you decide if you want straight up latte or latte after you drag your straw through the sauce. Basically, it's the best drink on the planet.
When we traveled to Des Moines for vacation in June we didn't find any restaurants we would visit again. Naturally, just passing through Des Moines we found a stellar place - Centro. They had a vegan tofu gnocchi with broccoli pesto and a salad with a pile of fresh tomatoes. Robert thought my pasta was slightly better than his!
We had one weekend to fiddle fart around, and we stopped by an amazing craft recycling place, ArtStart and one of the best bookstores I've ever been to, Against the Current, both in St. Paul. I kept picking up one treasure after another. ArtStart sold their papers by the inch!
We got back just this past Thursday, and the dogs were both overjoyed and exhausted. I immediately took Margo into work on Friday in the hopes she would forgive me for keeping her from J and her customers. This weekend has been a lot of catchup, relaxation, and tennis.
Tennis has been brutal this summer with the crazy humidity. My average heart rate when I play is usually 140s-150s. With the humidity the average has been near-death - 💀. But it's the best place to lay down all my burdens (or smack the shit out of them).
I am ready to dive into my last semester of school, do all the hard work to get my gut all spruced up and happy (and not tear myself down if I make a mistake), and really soak up all the joy of my job, art, family, and the pauses when I write it all down.