Wellbutrin totally gave me insomnia. So frustrating.

So I just got back from urgent care. I've been having stabby stomach pain and no appetite for a couple of weeks. That's different from my usual IBS symptoms, but distinctly far away from my heart. I thought maybe gallbladder, or just stress.

Hand to god, it's constipation. Confirmed by x-ray. (Autofill wanted that to be "Confirmed by X-Men.")

I went to urgent care for poop. I laughed.

My brother just told me he wouldn't even charge me a copay to tell me I'm literally full of shit. (He's not wrong.)

My brother just told me he wouldn't even charge me a copay to tell me I'm literally full of shit. (He's not wrong.)

Haha! That is awesome. I mean, sucks that you went to urgent care for it. But still. Hilarious.

Poop confirmed by X-men would be even more awesome though

Poop confirmed by X-men would be even more awesome though

Right? But I don't think they're covered by Humana.

Right? But I don't think they're covered by Humana.

Inhumana, maybe.

I'm glad the diagnosis wasn't something worse, Steph.

Man, I woke up super-cranky this morning. At 4:30 which probably didn't help. I got up after half an hour because I realized I was just lying there thinking of things that irritated me, so it wasn't like staying in bed was doing me any good.

I'm pretty sure it's the end result of this week being non-stop face-to-face work for four days running (including one 12 hour work day smack dab in the middle of it) and a very inconvenient meeting today. At least the non-meeting part of today involves working from home. The work stuff was good. I learned a lot and I met a bunch of interesting people. But it was just all so much.

I think I'm going to spend most of Saturday on the sofa, speaking to no one but the cat. Grocery shopping may have to happen at some point, but if I do it early or late enough, I can keep human interaction to a minimum.

And it looks like a thunderstorm is coming my way, which should cheer me up. Barring property damage, I love a good thunderstorm.

And, I just decided to address some of my crank by throwing money at it (Gaia bless privilege). Instead of standing in a thunderstorm, trying to navigate my town's confusing bus system, I ordered a Lyft to take me to today's lunch meeting. I already feel better about the rest of the day. Money doesn't solve everything, but it sure can be useful.

I went to urgent care for poop. I laughed.

Years ago, I called 911 and sent someone to the ER by ambulance for poop. Although, the presenting symptoms were dizziness, colapsing to the floor and slumping over, slack facial expression and slurred speech. The house manager who followed the person to the hospital later informed me that the dotor ran a bunch of tests, ruled out stroke and other things. Then the person went to the bathroom, pooped an enormous poop (glad I didn't have to unclog that toilet) and suddenly was better.

ETA: I'm glad you're more or less ok, Steph.

Poop happens. And sometimes doesn't.

Yay, Calli! Sometimes just making a small adjustment can make the day much better.

Years ago, I called 911 and sent someone to the ER by ambulance for poop.

The receptionist at urgent care told me to go to the ER when I said I had stomach pains on the left side. I get that they aren't equipped to deal with any kind of cardiac crisis, and I get that they have to err on the side of assuming the average urgent care patient mistakes heart pain for stomach pain, and I get that they make those assumptions *because* they want the patient to be safe and not die. I also get that they don't know me and don't have to believe I've done my homework. But I am not stupid, and if I thought it was heart-related (hello; Lang here), I would have called 911 immediately.

I asked her why I would go to the ER for stomach pain, and she said "they can do blood tests there that we can't do." I knew she meant You Are Fat And Have Left-Side Pain And I Don't Want A Heart Attack Patient To Die Here. I asked, "there are blood tests for stomach pain?" She said, really diffidently, "there are blood tests for everything."

Tim commended me for not lunging over the counter at her.

I said, "Honestly, I'll just go back home, then. It seems like a waste of the ER's time to sort out my stomach pain." A doctor who was sitting up front finally said "It could be gallbladder; we can take a look at you." THANK YOU. Good god.

And when it turned out to be poop and not a heart attack, I wanted to punch the receptionist. (Again, I get that they want their patients to be safe, and an actual heart attack needs to be seen at the hospital. But I get frustrated when medical professionals don't fucking LISTEN to the patients.)

Poop happens. And sometimes doesn't.

I'll whitefont some of this (because not everyone wants to read about poop, or cares about it, but it's not actually graphic): the thing is, I was SUPER surprised it was constipation, because I'm boringly regular. Down to the same rough time frame every day (thank you, coffee). However, I do still have IBS, and because of stress, it's flared up, though I thought I had it managed. My type of IBS is IBS-D (which means that, lately, I have diarrhea a couple of times a week, but a lot of the time I don't, because, like I said, I have the IBS [sort of] managed).

And I told all this to the doctor at urgent care, who said that what can happen is that diarrhea can pull so much water from your GI tract so quickly that not ALL of the poop makes it through, and then it gets stuck because of the lack of water. And if that's been happening for a couple of weeks (at least), well, a lot of stuff is getting stuck, even if I *am* regular. (Which still seems weird, but I saw the evidence on the x-ray with my own 2 eyes.)

A contributing factor is that constipation can lead to reduced appetite, which I've had for a couple of weeks (which is SUPER weird, because normally I want to eat the world), which meant I actually dropped the ball on eating oatmeal and other good fiber-y foods every day, so there was nothing helping to move stuff along. (I was, however, eating a lot of cheese, so basically I was -- and still am, I guess -- full of about 900 pounds of cheese.)

So, to sum up, I promised Tim I would eat my oatmeal today. And maybe no cheese. Damn it.