a life in the bathroom

I am finished with physical therapy. My therapist dismissed me a session earlier than planned. My colon muscles just never “came around or woke up”. My pelvic muscles gained about forty percent in their function. She mentioned that the next step for me would be having my colon removed. My sphincters are strong which is a good thing if I were to have the surgery but I’m still somewhat content drinking magnesium citrate every weekend. I will talk to my GI doctors about the possibility of having the surgery and what the pros and cons are; who wants to drink magnesium citrate for the rest of their life?! The down side of the surgery according to my therapist (she works with patients like me and patients who have had the surgery) is that you have to eat small meals and you “go” to the bathroom more frequently – possibly two to three times a day. Before my intestines/colon slowed down, that was my life some days, I lived in the bathroom. It’s just deciding how I would want to live my life;

• In the bathroom a couple of days out of the week
• In the bathroom all throughout the week sporadically

Either way I’m going to live my life in the bathroom (LOL). My bathroom is going to be nice in my future house. I have PLENTY of time to decide. My therapist just reminded me that the older you get, the harder it is for those muscles to adjust or change to their proper function. I just don’t want to miss out on life. With the magnesium citrate, I’ve almost missed a year of weekends. My car parks on Friday evening and I don’t move it until Monday morning. What’s that going to be like as a wife much less a mom? I so miss weekend outings with Jacob but as a mom I’m going miss birthday parties, soccer games and dance recitals.

running out of steam...

For those other GP patients out there; do you ever feel like you’re running out of steam and you can’t keep up?

This has been me for the past few months. At work I walk up to dining hall for lunch with several friends. It has progressively got worse but by the time I get to the dining hall I feel as if I am going to collapse in the parking lot from feeling so weak. I know I’m out of shape – don’t get me wrong here. When I get home from work there is no energy left to go and work out; so yes I’m out of shape.

This week the feeling persisted throughout much of the day – all week so I called my GI doctor; perhaps my nutrition had something to do with it. He had me come down to do some blood work; he said it could be a variety of things.

I met with my nutritionist this past week as well. She wasn’t pleased with my daily calorie intake so she recommended switching over to liquid diet and substituting pureed food (baby food – I’m only touching the fruits) and only eating whole foods (pasta, potatoes and rice) when I feel like it. The whole idea is to obtain better GI absorption since I am having what appears to be a hard time (liquids digest and absorb better). If I continue to drink the Special K Protein drinks to receive any adequate nutritional value, I will need to drink six to eight per day. Currently I’m doing wonderful to drink three and then I usually eat a “GP” sized meal for dinner. So- I’ve got some diet planning and rearranging to do.

As for therapy, it’s HARD!! As human beings we are so complex. My pelvic muscles have come about forty percent. As for my colon muscles, it’s not going to happen. They are too damaged – that was my understanding. My therapist has tried all types of techniques but I just can’t get my muscles to work. We still have some things to work on but it is what it is.