diverticulitis

AND THE REST

“Can I still go on my cruise?” I ask. He looks at me like I just asked if I could dig up his grandmother and take her to the prom.
“Well, I don’t know …” he says uncertainly. “If it’s infected …”
Again, I told my girlfriend to go without me, but she was having none of that. “How bad could it be?” she said. “I’ll watch out for you. You watch your diet, and you’ll be fine.”
Has anyone ever watched their diet on a cruise ship?

But I did, and went on the cruise despite the doctor’s warnings. Ahead of time, he told me to follow what he called the BRAT diet --- Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast (dry). I did, and it worked --- along with the three different drugs he prescribed --- hydrocodone for pain, which was significant, something else for nausea and an antibiotic in case there was an infection present.

Speaking of infection, yes, I had one, and yes, it was revolting. For the first three nights of the cruise, I got up about once every two hours to sit on the commode and shot out nothing but watery blood.
For three damn days.

After that, the infection cleared up and the blood went away, but I will still miserable for about half the trip before I started to get better. Even though the initial pain from the infection went away, I still had the most god-awful cramps, bloating and gas I’ve ever had (which doesn’t do much to promote harmony in the narrow confines of our cabin).

I was surprisingly fine on shore excursions, but while on the ship I spent most of my time lying in bed on my stomach, waiting for nature to take its course. Which it often did.
With about two days left, I started to feel much better and could eat more things. For the first three or four days, I had nothing but two or three bites of food at each setting. Otherwise, I (very slowly) ate nothing but applesauce, Jell-o and some bland soups that didn’t have anything hard in them that could get stuck in my colon. I remind you, I was on a cruise ship.

The day we disembarked for home, I was finally back to normal and could eat a regular meal. I weighed myself on our last day and lost 10 pounds in the span of a week. I have to be the only person in the history of the world who took a cruise and LOST weight.
That was one week of hell I never want to go through again, and I’ll never eat anything with hard seeds again.

Elliotte, one thing that really helped me was the ship's hot tub. So if you have access to one, I would use it.

 

Great post, Dwayne. You and the girlfriend stay together?

 

Yes, Ace. We are still together.

She's gotten accustomed to my idiocies.

 

10 years ago, Mr. Lugs was jogging, being his healthy self, etc. when his left side started bothering him.

He thought it was a pulled muscle, so he refused to go to the doctor.

A week later, he was spiking a fever and having night sweats that soaked the entire matress.

So I dragged his ass into the E.R. in the middle of the night. They tested him for everything from mono to HIV, all negative. The doctors were about to release him when a nice young lady doctor arrived for the morning shift.

She took a quick history and said, "Diverticulitis." All the other doctors disagreed with her (I heard them talking in the hall) because they said he was too young.

But she ordered a scope, and sure enough, there was a huge honkin' infection in his colon. He spend 3 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics.

The gastroenterologists gave him two options: Treat with a restricted diet and occasional antibiotics or treat surgically.

He tried the first way for 2 months, but his side continued to bother him, so he had surgery. Back then (mid 90s), they cut open his abdomen, removed 6 inches from his colon and sewed the two ends back together. We all have like 20 feet of colon or something, so nobody's going to miss 6 inches. Fast forward through a pretty tough recovery from the cut, and voila-- healthy Mr. Lugs.

The restricted diet means no nuts, seeds, popcorn, beans, eggplant-- skins can irritate as much as bits of nut. Mr. Lugs doesn't have to follow that diet because he had the surgery, but he doesn't eat a lot of it now just as a precaution.

It's also good to take a daily OTC something that will expand the walls of the colon. That way it's harder for bits of nut, etc. to get trapped in the colon wall.

It's definitley treatable.

 

Sounds like you are a true romantic.

 

I don't have a real bad case, but my rule is go easy on the nuts. I have to remind myself, if I'm sitting at a bar and there's a tasty bowl of nut mix sitting there, that it is of the devil.
Found out I had it when I was one of the chaperones for a kids field trip to a minor league baseball game. I bought a bag of peanuts for my son and his friends. Turned out none of them wanted any. I absent-mindedly sat there, watching the game, and ate the whole bag myself. The next day, and for a few days thereafter, I wanted to curl up in a ball and die.
Every now and then I tempt fate and pay the price. For me, it's often like I'm having super-bad gas pains, but there is no gas, or at least, no relief obtainable in the traditional manner. Too much information, probably, but I'm thinking there might be somebody reading this who has the problem and doesn't know what it is.

 

My wife is going through the symptoms of this right now.
She had a scan yesterday but since her doctor's office is closed today (that pissed me off), we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the results.
Last night, she dropped a stink bomb that even made me leave the room.
Her dad had this years ago and had to wear a colostomy bag for a while.
I have a hunch it's going to be a crappy (sorry about the pun) weekend.