Woman's Wednesday

Hey everyone, Woman here. I'm blogging for Norman today since he has not had much to talk about lately. He's been in a bad mood because I changed his food back to dry food. No more beef and broccoli for him, because he was just getting way too greedy for his food. It was offensive, and I couldn't take it any more, so he's on Bil-Jac now. So anyway, I've got the blog power today!!!

I dedicate this post to Doozy who is so open and free with her thoughts and experiences with poop that I knew she would appreciate this story. This is an "involved" story, so I will warn you when the poop talk starts and ends so you can skip that part if you want. It's human poop, not dog poop, so be warned.

About two years ago (yes, this is a long story - LOL!) I noticed a sort of cloudy discoloration on my left big toenail. I didn't think much of it, assuming I had hit it or someone had stepped on it, and I went on with life. A year later, it was still the same, so I figured I kept doing something to damage it - I am quite clumsy. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the toenail seemed to be separating from the nail bed a bit, and since that couldn't be a good thing, I made an appointment with a podiatrist. She took some x-rays and told me I have hallux limitus, which causes two things; 1 - arthritis in the big toe joint, and 2 - since it limits the range of motion of the big toe joint, it causes a heavy impact down the toe during repetitive movements which could cause the nail to separate from the nail bed. She told me that the good news is that the arthritis might not start to bother me for 6-12 months. This is the good news? I'm 32, and I have 6-12 months before arthritis in my big toe joints might keep me from doing things I love to do? Whack. So she cut the toenail back a bit and told me to call if it started turning green, and then it would have to be removed. I knew that it would never turn green. My toenail wouldn't do that to me. Only elderly people walk around with missing toenails, right??

Three days later - it turned green. All I could say was - SOB. (If you don't know what that means, here's a hint - my step brother is an SOB - his Mom is really crabby. I used to tell my Mom that my Stepmom was a witch, but replace the 'w' with a 'b.' I can't believe she let me get away with that.) So anyway, it turned green. I went back to the evil toenail clipper wielding podiatrist and she removed my toenail. I wish it was as smooth as that sentence made it sound, but in reality, it was an SOB. First she sprayed something on my toe to make it REALLY REALLY cold. Like, if she had hit it with a hammer, I'm sure it would have shattered. The cold stuff hurt. Bad. Then she stuck a needle in my toe THREE times to numb it. THREE times! I cried. Finally she pried the toenail off. It was so gross. I had to change the bandages twice a day, and each time I did, I couldn't look at the wound, because it made me almost barf. Just thinking about it now makes me wanna hurl, and it's healed up completely at this point. She sent the toenail off to the lab to find out what was growing in it and whether I would need antibiotics to fight it.

A week later she called back to tell me my toenail was supporting all types of bacteria and fungal growth. Lovely, eh? She prescribed 3 weeks of an antibiotic called Omnicef. I always research the drugs I am given, so I looked this one up on-line to find that a very common side effect is diarrhea. I just KNEW I wouldn't get the diarrhea though, because seriously, I've dealt with enough crap with this ganky toe.

*********************** Poop Talk Starting ***********************

So a couple days on the Omnicef, and no signs on diarrhea. Thank goodness! Day 4 I notice that I am pooping a little more frequently, and it's a little "softer" than usual, but nothing to really worry about. Last night (day 5) I decided to go to a class I had never tried before - Body Combat, which is a combination martial arts / kick boxing type class. I was thinking about training to teach this class since I like kick boxing a lot and talked to the Group Fitness Manager about chatting with her after class about training. So I get to class, and we're about 10 minutes into the workout when I start to feel a little bit of concern from my intestinal region. I finish up the set and make a quick potty run just in case the Omnicef has chosen now to wreak havoc on my bowels. And it had chosen just that. Not only were my intestines in a twist, but I found that I had pooped myself a little bit. Me. A grown adult. Pooped myself during a group fitness class. I remember in second grade there was a girl who frequently pooped herself, and we made so much fun of her - poor Mary Joe. I was getting my comeuppance, and it sucked. I didn't quite know what to do. All of my belongings were in the class that still had 40 minutes left of bouncing, kicking, lunging, squatting, and I had scheduled time to chat with the Group Fitness Manager who was teaching the class! If I ran in, grabbed my stuff and left, I would have to give her some excuse for leaving, and although I'm sharing with all of you the fact that I pooped myself, I didn't exactly want to share that with her! So, I cleaned myself up and went back to the class, the whole time worrying that I was pooping myself again. I was relieved at the end of class to find that I had NOT pooped myself again. What a lovely experience. I'm ready for geriatrics. Perhaps I should teach the Silver Sneakers class since I can now relate with people who have toenails removed and poop themselves. (That was meant as humor, not to degrade the elderly, so laugh if you find it funny, and ignore it if you don't. Or, if you find it unforgivably offensive, you can stop reading and/or leave me a flaming comment.)

*********************** Poop Talk Ending ***********************

After class I just wanted to get home. You can imagine, right? So I hop on the Parkway, driving a little faster than I should and just power down, when I see some lovely flashing lights behind me. Let me preface this by saying that I have never been pulled over, so my first assumption was that (although I was doing 55 in a 45) the cop just wanted around me. So I slow down and pull off, and he pulls off too. Why is he pulling off? Surely he just wants around me. Holy Cow! I'm going to get a ticket! Cop walks up to me, and I hand him my license. I consider relaying the poop story to him so he knows how desperate I am to get home but decide to just suck it up, take the ticket and maintain my dignity. So we go through the whole "do you know how fast you were going" routine, and he takes my license and registration back to his car. After a couple minutes he comes back and tells me he is going to "let it slide" since I have never had a ticket. What a nice guy.

I was glad to get out of the ticket, although I totally deserved it, but I would have rather gotten a ticket than pooped my pants. LOL! At least I didn't get both :)

So please, comfort me with stories of your own dysfunctional bowel movements so I don't feel so alone right now.