The IBS

Warning: icky health-related post ahead.

The swearing librarian is frustrated, she is often under the weather, and she would like a stomach and intestinal transplant. On the bright side, due to frequent bouts of sickness involving losing the world out my ass and occasionally through old fashioned vomiting, I have never looked better, and at Christmas my oldest friend K told me that I looked like a supermodel, which was undoubtedly due to the diarrhea, which is the way that all the cool kids lose weight. I have always been a token sick girl (or for at least the last 5 years, and especially while travelling) but ever since coming to my mid sized Canadian city, it has been getting steadily worse. First I thought I was allergic to this city, then maybe that I had cryptococcus, but while there are still some tests yet to be done (which I may choose not to have, given my theory that they will not tell me anything definitive) the grumpy mean gastroenterologist doctor says there is about a 98% chance that I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, herein after known as The IBS, for which there is no real cure and all that I can do is try to change my diet to cut out any number of things, including but not limited to wheat, milk products, some kinds of meat, some kinds of vegetables, caffeine, alcohol, and chocolate.

So basically all food.

Over the last couple months I have tried to change a couple things - namely I have cut most milk products out of my diet, and have mostly stopped drinking alcohol. But please god, I have given up cheese and booze - don't take my bread and my chocolate! What would be the point left to living with no bread and no chocolate? However, I have recently been told about a cool cookbook for other people like me with spastic stomachs, and I will try to implement certain things like using honey instead of sugar in cooking (honey is much easier to digest; trying to make things like tomato sauce and jam instead of buying the sugar/ starch/ preservative laced store version). The one small problem is that the authors suggest an alternate to regular flour, which is also hard to digest - almond flour ... which would be lovely if I weren't allergic to fucking nuts! But luckily my rocket scientist friend knows the author and I am going to see if she has an alternative for me. Another positive is that my actor boy, who was a chef in his other life, has been instrumental in helping me find things I can eat or making meals that will hopefully not make me sick, although as my classical friend aptly pointed out, the things that most commonly make me sick are anything that I drink and anything that I eat.

Another part of The IBS that is pissing me off (besides the fact that I feel nauseous many mornings, frequently have stomach pains that feel like someone is twisting my intestines into german sausages, sometimes have embarrassing gas, and my generally being excited about having the disease that is commonly experienced by old men) is that I have now become the dinner guest from hell that everyone hates: that "oh I'm sorry I can't eat what you are serving - but don't worry, I am fine with bread and water, so you go ahead and eat your meal and I will be perfectly happy watching you eat" person that you can't take anywhere for dinner or if you do invite over for dinner, you either have to ask them ahead what they can actually eat, or just let them eat what you are serving and suffer the consequences the next day. Don't you hate those people? I know I do. It sucks because I really like going out for dinner, trying new foods, and having dinner with friends or family, but when you are worried about every second ingredient, it kind of takes the fun out of the dining out experience. There is no easy answer to this situation, and I am liable to be full of rage about it for the next little while until I figure out what I can and can't eat - but even then there will be no solid answer to my problem. I know it could be worse - I could have a more debilitating intestinal problem like Crohn's or Colitis, but at this point in time I am not feeling much solace about the fact that I only have the sort of unfortunate stomach problem as a opposed to the serious ones.

So I may have to starve myself when travelling, but I may also have potential for being the mid sized Canadian city's next top model.