LAXATIVES, PURGING AND PILEUPS

2100 words / 10 minute read

There is a stowaway in my guts that I call "Olga", and I have nothing good to say about her at all. She is an uninvited house-guest who leeches the goodness from my food, refuses to leave, and is so evil that she actually wants me dead. Strictly speaking though, “she” is made up of many constantly multiplying entities rather than existing as one fully-formed conscious being:

“Cancer is unchecked cell growth. Mutations in genes can cause cancer by accelerating cell division rates or inhibiting normal controls on the system, such as cell cycle arrest or programmed cell death. As a mass of cancerous cells grows, it can develop into a tumour. Cancer cells can also invade neighbouring tissues and sometimes even break off and travel to other parts of the body, leading to the formation of new tumours at those sites.” More on that here.

Despite not doubting the truth of those words, I consider her one single malevolent entity. And, though Olga doesn't know it, she’s got all the hallmarks of a super-efficient killing machine, a organism perfect for its purpose - like a shark or a crocodile, unchanged for thousands of years. But unlike Olga, sharks aren’t stupid enough to saw off the branch while they’re still sitting on it (if that’s not too ridiculous a picture to paint with the broad strokes of my mixed metaphors).




In fact, starting off as grumbles of discontent from the "rank & file", cancer cells are basically aggrieved obsolete drone cells that have been told off for doing a shoddy job once too many times and are ordered to commit hari kari.

In the face of mandatory retirement and imminent death, instead some choose to rebel and do just the opposite, digging their heels in and resting up before starting to replicate madly, this unchecked population growth leading to some cells feeling it was all getting a bit "too crowded" and deciding to take on recon missions to look at the potential for colonising other organs.

That is where we are now with Olga, in that she’s very much at home growing fatter and more powerful in my lower intestine. She’s growing more daring too, recently signing an Executive Order which gave her full and complete power over what is allowed to pass through the gut, since that's very much her turf and she's in control.

At first, the choice of what she would let through seemed arbitrary at best and downright spiteful at worst as she would vary what she took exception to day-to-day, deliberately manipulating the path of the food as it worked its way through through my digestive system.

It was like she had the power to stamp whatever she deemed “Unwelcome by Olga” and it would be rejected by customs.

With nowhere to go, this partially-digested grub would then just end up hanging around Olga’s spot like the geeky wallflowers at a Single’s Night: no real use to anyone but equally not going anywhere just in case they "get lucky".

Not that they have anywhere to go, since Olga pretty much ensures that traffic is “one way” and for a long time all I could do was put up with this - until I found a way to retaliate by asking my friendly pharmacist for something to help get "things moving". I was given a number of innocent looking green pills, with the brand name “Relax” (sounds so soothing!).

Though I understand the literal reason for their name, I personally feel it is somewhat deceptive, considering the innocent sugar-coated exterior masked the fact that these are the Scotch Bonnet of laxatives. These little buggers looked like they could be Tic-tacs, but the punch they pack is tremendous and taking two of them seems to give my insides the Extra Special VIP Purge Package with additional Pressure-Blasting free of charge.

This method is effective but it does put me on my arse for 24 hours straight (sorry, no pun intended), lying down in a darkened room all day, drained completely, no energy whatsoever.

The stuff is so strong, it’s like they've managed to find a human-tolerable version of the kind of corrosives they used in "Mission: Impossible" to eat through door hinges.

Even if not as dramatic as fictional spy gadgetry (or those strong drain unblockers that sizzle and smoke when put to work in real life), these little smarties are as easy to swallow as they are good at their job, not to mention “fast working”, immediately producing some very intimidating noises that seem to come from a previously uncharted volcanic region from deep within me.

These sounds feel like they’re being created by the release of air that’s been trapped for centuries but has last found a way through, like gas coming up through molten lava or the Bog of Eternal Stench from Labyrinth.

That’s when the real fun begins as you can imagine!

At that point I lived completely under the fickle whim of Olga, her decision-making somewhat erratic and bi-polar; the same meal could lead to constipation one day and diarrhoea the next.

This has meant a lot of trial and error with regards to what was allowed on the menu but we eventually worked out that the seed of an attack of constipation is sewn days in advance. By eating something that she doesn't approve of, I have started the process of slowly blocking the pipe up bit by bit, meal by meal.

A good metaphor could be to compare the set-up to a newly installed border crossing, say, spanning an eight lane motorway somewhere in continental Europe.

Travelling between countries, Schengen style, for years, you’d maintained an average speed of 92mph – but today you’re suddenly confronted by red warning signs relating to a new toll booth style passport control, with a barrier which ensures you come to a complete stop so that you can show the official your papers.

Olga is the boss of the booth but her management skills are non-existent - so she’s not even considered how she will remove those rejected, and the solid first wave of cars you arrived will soon be replaced by another already on the horizon, hurtling towards the booth oblivious to the rule changes or potential for blockage.

On arrival, they will try to muscle their way through the gates, the "hurtling" nature of the approach slowing gradually until it becomes a trickle, as by now all of the lanes are blocked by rejects and nothing can get through.

When the next set of motorists come across this new toll booth, they crash at full speed into the back of the rejected bunch, the next wave crash into them and so on, creating a pile up effect since no one is aware that there’s no way through so they aren’t paying attention or worried about slowing down before they plough into the cars in front..

In fact the presence ahead of Bank Holiday levels of motorway pileup mayhem does nothing to slow down those drivers careering headlong towards it, determined to make it through the border no matter what it takes – after all they feel they have just as much right to get through as anyone. The problem is that everyone else thinks the same and there is nowhere for them to go either once they become aware that the Chief of Border Control has now banned all immigration.

Obviously there’s quite a lot of momentum generated by the digestive system, even without the imaginary motorway mayhem going on. When Olga was able to engineer blockages, the muscles that were so used to simply pushing food through a pipe (which you wouldn’t describe as “weak”) now struggle to do their basic job effectively and get the hump, redoubling their efforts to get food through with no concern for me or the discomfort that results.

My only defence, apart from "riding out" the spasm is using breathing exercises to control the pain (I learned early on why they tell women in labour to do this, it feels very natural and is actually really effective).

The resulting shockwave from the meeting of the unstoppable force and the immovable object causes huge stomach cramps that are actually visible (think John Hurt in Alien but less blood) as I can see areas of my belly rising with the path of the food as it's stopped in its tracks and turned around, which judging by the stabbing (not to mention lingering and colicky) pain, it’s clearly not intending to do.

It’s at this stage that the emergency services are called in to assess the scale of the pileup and what kind of purge must be done to get the motorway flowing again. There are several different weapons of choice for this task, some more militarised than others:

• Fibre-based supplements, which generally come with some kind of pro-biotic and are taken once a day are at the weaker end of things but they have kept things moving for me in the past. I've read recently though that, with the passages narrowing with her presence, anything too fibrous could prove too bulky to pass her stringent regulations.
• Mid-strength laxatives like Senna and Lactulose
• Full on blitz/purge strength laxatives, which seem to work by drawing all of the water from elsewhere in your body to effectively give you an internally produced enema over the course of several hours (these are very much the big guns!)

The latter method puts me out of action for a good 24 hours in total as I say – spaced out and in much discomfort from the stomach cramps, all I can do is lie on my left side while I can feel the pileup being cleared from the motorway by what feels like the same high pressure water-cannon used by riot police somehow originating inside me.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t fun by any stretch of the imagination but I’ve learnt to make it bearable in two ways – first, by learning to let go of any shame about the dirtier symptoms of my cancer. This I found easy since it was a baptism of fire: when still in hospital post-op there was “leakage” so I had to have my bum wiped for me for the first time in 30 odd years – and by a young, pretty and generally lovely nurse, who under normal circumstances I might have made more of an effort to impress.

The second is the use of sleep to remove myself from pain and discomfort – of course strong sedatives are the best course of action to make this scenario happen, though I use it only as a last resort, since I find sleep such as waste of time and I have so much to do!

God it was welcome at the time though, and I would always wake up drained but much more comfortable, the process of pileup removal all but complete.

There are methods of purging which are easier to access in the "real world" that wouldn't put you out of action for two days – enemas and colonic hydrotherapy just two types of treatment that aren’t chemical based, so should hopefully have you back on your feet far quicker.

Something else to bear in mind is that foods you cut from your diet when symptoms were much more “liquid” could be reinstated on a limited basis to try to find some form of equilibrium.

The only problem is you don’t know if you’ve put the wheels in motion for a huge pileup until you wake up in discomfort one morning not long after, your (normally flat) belly hard to the touch and distended like a starving child in an Oxfam appeal. Due to the gridlock inside you, thanks to Olga’s latest shenanigans, your midsection expanded by a backed-up mix of of air, liquid, and partially digested food that has no business stopping mid-flow like that.

The muscles with control the journey of the food through the gut seem even less bright than Olga, so will blindly hit her at full speed before trying again to clear the blockage and repeating the exercise, not knowing that there’s no way through until next Purge-Day.

This thankfully all changed in May of this year when I decided to go home to the UK. I will write more on that trip in due course but an interesting unexpected result was the addition of George II, my brand-new colostomy bag, which has changed everything with regards to how I eat and given me a new lease of life. George is a "Bag For Life" though, but that's a small price to pay for the comfort it has brought me - more on him later too!

All in all, it isn’t a pretty business so if my experience could be of use to you, please feel free to get in touch and I'll respond to any questions or comments as quickly as I can - thanks for reading, catch up soon!