Hello subscribers and followers. Technically, I should be doing homework right now. However, I figure there is no time like the present to put myself out there with my medical injury story, especially since life is short—yes, reliving this can be traumatic, but I know my story can bring hope to others.
I hope this prologue you can relate to, because we all have had embarrassing moments, and there is no time like the present to pursue your dreams and live your life goals. So, feel free if you want to; it's totally up to you to share a moment in the comments where you have been in a sticky or shitty situation.
Jackson Memorial Hospital 2017 After being there for 2 weeks and not getting fixed, that bag on my side is Dirty Bob. Dirty Bob kept me alive by collecting my bile.
Prologue: Shit Explosion
The time blurred on that late September day. Blurred because I was bored, blurred because of the bubbly farts—escaping my ass in the back office of the busy emergency operations center. Looking busy, I was busy squeezing my butt cheeks together while I longed for 3pm—when I could leave. When I could fart in peace in my car and at home.
Perched at the computer furthest away from the center of the room scattered with televisions, desks, phones, and four employees working cases or waiting for a case to come in. I do not know these employees and was apathetic about knowing these employees. I cared for 3pm to come and come fast. The four workers ignored me. I ignored them. The beauty and the curse of being the freaking new guy.
I was by myself. The bubble guts continued, and my tummy ached because I had a stent placed in my biliary system, my bile duct, to be exact. The stent, the extra hardware, allowed ‘Dirty Bob,’ my bile bag I lived with from June through August 9, 2017, to be evicted. ‘Dirty Bob’ hung off my side collecting bile; bile is supposed to flow inside the body, not out. On the day after my 34th birthday, I woke up in recovery and bag-free—relieved. The relief was fleeting, though, as bitter side effects soon plagued my delicate digestive system.
I learned to never trust a fart. Farts would lead to hot magma shit, fiery diarrhea escaping my butt and running down my legs, a shower, tears, and changing (or more like burning) my underwear. I had shit myself in the privacy of my home three times before. Usually, a big fart would erupt into a shitplosion, and before I knew what was happening, I would end up with shit in my pants and tears in my eyes. The first time the shitopolison happened, I sprinted off the couch to the bathroom, my girls calling out behind “Mommy, what’s wrong?” I replied, “Nothing, girls, mommy just had an accident … Oh look, it’s early bath time for Mom.”
At home I was safe—at work I was terrified—perched up at the computer, clenching my cheeks like my life depended on it because it did, and I let out two tiny farts. My nose wrinkled at the smell. I scrutinized the employees in the middle of the room. Did they smell that smell? Oh, that smell? I was a ghost; no one heard or smelled what was happening in my pants. I am in the clear; I thought naively about no shitpolosions today. The two little farts were like the beginning of a song, soft and light, then the chorus came in…
Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da
Pressure Pushing down on me… (on my uniform pants)
Pressing down on you… (down on my self-esteem)
Another fart escaped. A tiny mischievous fart erupted the dam of shit, freely flowing down my blue uniformed pant leg.
Under pressure That burns a building down (I was ready to burn down this operations center to escape this nightmare)
My thick black boot sock is slowly getting covered. My mind raced as the river kept flowing, the fire of farts, the pressure of farts running down my legs.
OH—MY—FUCKING—GOD! OH; MY; FUCKING; GOD! Did I just shit my pants at work? Is this real life? Is this my life now, shitting myself like a newborn? Do I need to wear adult diapers? Aren’t adult diapers expensive? All these questions raced through my head as I forced tears back from embarrassment.
I was in a rare race with diarrhea and trying to log off the computer. A shitty situation became even shittier. The supervisor was in my area. I was no longer a ghost. The supervisor was three feet away from me, retrieving a manual. His face contorted at my stench of disgust mixed with horror as he bolted from the area, looking back in my direction repulsed. Not meaning to, I made eye contact with the supervisor, and the repulsion was clear. OH MY GOD, he knows, he knows I just shit my pants. Oh, my god, the supervisor knows I shit myself; I wanted to go back to being a ghost. I wanted my medical situation to be fixed before I dove into work again. I wanted a Coast Guard job, not the same old office work in a new place. Struggling to log off my computer, I thought, How am I going to leave with no one seeing me or, worse yet, smelling me? Two superpowers would have been helpful in this dire moment: number one, invisibility, as I would have to walk past my four co-workers with a wet, squishy bottom, and the ability to turn off their sense of smell...at least for two minutes. The supervisor knew I had shit my pants. I had to escape this shitty situation, with or without superpowers.
The computer logged off; I grabbed my purse, my ID card, and fuck everything else. The time to examine the repulsive damage had arrived. Walking out of the office, head down, thinking and hoping this little movement made me invisible. Feeling squishy, dirty, and ashamed, I skipped goodbyes to my new co-workers. The safe haven was the bathroom. The tears of embarrassment flowed as I pulled down my uniform pants and realized the damage. I was trying to clean myself up and hoped my female co-workers would not use the bathroom. The cleanup was going to take a long time to clean up this shitty mess. I was living a real-time nightmare—I shit my pants at work.
Hot, angry tears flowed down my face as the sandpaper-type government-issued paper towels scratched my bottom. Concealing my underwear in the trash like a murderer hiding a body, the time to leave had come; time to go home. I peered out of the bathroom to make sure no one was in the hall on their cell phone before I made the jailbreak to my car. Where I knew I had some napkins and a backup towel to sit on for the thirty-minute ride home. No one was in the hall. I waddled as fast as I could to my car, peeled out of the parking lot in my 2010 Nissan Pathfinder, and let military police pull me over. My teary, crystal-clear blue eyes and puffy face should give me a free pass. Once home, I hopped in the shower, put on my comfortable clothes with a pad just in case another shitstorm was on the horizon. Maxi pads were not just for periods anymore; they also helped catch the occasional diarrhea. But for me at this time, diarrhea was not so occasional.
Why would a normal, healthy-looking 34-year-old woman be shitting her pants at work? Let us go back to the beginning.
This is the prologue to my memoir, Painful Farts: A Memoir of a Botched Gallbladder Surgery.
Learn how to advocate for yourself in the military medical system, and any healthcare system, because you … only you know your body.
PS: I do not own the rights to Under Pressure by David Bowie and Queen. However, when I am in a jam, that is the first song that pops into my head!
Great and sad story, you are amazing.
So funnyyy love it