Y'all don't know how much I appreciate your support. Again, I've been pretty darn calm about this whole thing because I think my mag levels are OK now and I owe that to you folks!!!
5 liquid poops on Thursday, no poops yesterday. Still somewhat rumbly but better, took 1 immodium yesterday and the day before. Stopped Pepto about 2 days ago. Eating very basically but the slow down started before cutting out the sunflower butter/bananas so can't say that getting rid of those helped. Still awaiting a poop, wondering what that will look like. Spent time on phone with GI docs NP and PCP's NP and we all think it's probably a gut virus that kicked this off (all my coworker texts are very apologetic, lots of gut stuff has gone around the department and is still going around...so they think they are responsible for this!!). They agree that antibiotics are a bad idea if I'm not completely positive I have something. GI doc suggested upping cholestyramine so am doing that (packets, not scoops..). I'm wondering if this wasn't a perfect storm as just before this mess started I cut down my cholestyramine dosage thinking maybe I didn't need 2 packets a day. Seems like everyone wants to get off that stuff and maybe that was a really bad idea. I had really been doing well and had gained some weight back!!!
This whole thing has really shown me how delicate I am. I thought things were going well though not perfectly for years just being gf/df/sf. I mean, I weighed what I wanted, did what I wanted. Geez, 2 years ago I was heading for Nebraska to start 7 days of riding the "Bike Ride Across Nebraska" for the 6th time. We had our own pop up trailer and frozen meals. Those days are over I'm afraid, for a couple reasons obviously. Now I'm wondering if I can even return to working with the public in a hospital setting at all. Maybe this was the perfect storm (which had never happened before), or maybe this is my future. I don't know. I get it Gabes, but other than moving to a farm on the eastern plains of Colorado..I don't know how I would isolate myself from molds and all this stuff!! Live in a bubble??
I know even when I was good there was still something in my diet (or environment or whatever) that was still not right. So I did Allegra daily for a year with no change. Cut out legumes, no change. Cut out eggs, no change. Cut out my tapioca bagels, no change. Never diet rice even pop up on my radar so never cut that out. But since the last Enterolab test July 2016.. I have been good about not eating stuff I react to. Funny enough I haven't had even a minor hotflash in these past 2 weeks of being homebound!!! So maybe the progesterone cream is helping that and the wierdo cramping stuff.
Ya, there is gut stuff on my mom's side of the family. The Swedes. And I mean, pretty much straight up Swede. So some of this may be some wierd genetic predisposition to whatever. Gut stuff. Though my aunt that just died last year had RA in addition to horrible gut stuff. Basically she made it to 85 years old but was a skeleton with bad diarrhea when she died and had been on like tincture of opium for diarrhea for years (diarrhea for years). She was always at the specialty doc's for something. And though she died in Colorado Springs, she lived back east in Maryland for YEARS so I assume it wasn't just "Frontier Medicine in Colorado" that she was dealing with. She didn't die of gut stuff people, died after a couple falls, some dementia and eventual subdural hematomas. Train wreck.
Again, I have really had to fall back and reassess where my life is going. This ship is sailing on my income only. Wondering what I can do if I can't be a Physical Therapist anymore. Huh... But also wondering if I am being too doom and gloom with this and just get healed up and not worry about the future too much. What happens ....happens. Maybe this won't ever happen again, who knows??
Beautiful day here in Denver. Am gonna shower and go sit in the sun for awhile...and await this poop!!
Laine
