Post #39: Thirsty girl

Lady, I hope those are all filled with vodka, because that is the only excuse for that outfit. Also, I enjoy your fancy headband and "welcome to the gun show" pose.



One. more. day. One more day of steroids and then I am back to where I started. I'm not sure that I'm in remission anymore, but then again I'm not sure I'm not......I guess I'll find out the old fashioned way, which is to stop taking drugs and see what happens. This is not the fun kind of suspense, like waiting for college acceptance letters (although that wasn't fun either), or watching Law & Order and trying to guess who did it (although I always guess), or watching elimination night on American Idol (which I don't do, because I'm not 12). Hey guess what? I DON'T LIKE SUSPENSE, especially when it has to do with my health. Nothing good can come from having a surprising colon. I'm just saying. I feel like that should be a t-shirt, or a bumper sticker at the very least. In my head, I picture a colon hiding behind a tree and jumping out at unsuspecting tourists. Eventually, some poor guy from Kansas will have a heart attack, and then I can say, SEE? No one enjoys a surprising colon! Officer, arrest that organ.

Anyway.

In my vast experience with Crohn's (vast being two seconds worth of useless expertise), I've found that part of the disease is playing lab rat (calm down PETA, they're testing all of this shit on me). I've been on steroids for 5 months now (yikes), in varying doses, and random other medicines before that, and while I understand that there is trial and error involved in finding the right medication for the job, it seems like I spend and awful lot of time shoving random chemicals down my mouth and waiting to see what happens, or coming off those drugs and waiting to see what happens. The whole process feels less like a calculated scientific endeavor than a birthday party game where the doctors and naturopaths blindfold themselves and randomly roam through a pharmacy, picking pills at random (that would be a fun birthday! note to self, call Walgreen's). So I guess the waiting game begins anew.

The reason for the delightful picture above is that I think part of the reason this week was so crappy (yes, yes, I know, all of the slang for "bad" is related to poo: crappy, shitty....well, those are the only two I can think of right now) is that I was dehydrated. It's very hard to hydrate yourself when you're trying to stay away from Gatorade, which I am, because I could sooooooooooo jump back on that delicious, delicious lemonade flavored wagon. The other problem, as explained by my nice naturopath and the rakish doctor at urgent care who pumped me full of three litres of fluid (ha!) a few months ago, is that when you're having a lot of diarrhea, and your AAC is inflamed, it's hard for your body to absorb water anyway. You can drink water until the cows come home, but if you're body's not absorbing it, you're not really solving the problem.

I can usually tell when I'm dehydrated-I get leg cramps, get dizzy when I stand up too quickly, and get super emotional (because, you know, it's not like I need to keep the water IN MY BODY). Looking back, this week met all of those criteria, but with the help of some Imodium I got myself back on track. However, if I had gotten my ass in gear, I would have gone to get rehydrated. If you've never been rehydrated before, let me explain how it works. You go in (to your naturopath's office, in my case, or to urgent care or the ER or wherever) feeling sick, and sluggish, and depleted, and they pump delicious saline into your veins, and suddenly peace and calm and coolness and rainbows (and, um, water) flow through your body. Your brain, which was stuck in anxious panic mode, relaxes. Mental clarity returns.

Once, when I was teaching, I was having an awful symptom day, and I scheduled a last minute appointment with my nice naturopath to get some hydration. He has these mini bags that take a half hour to drain (the bigass ones at urgent care or the ER take longer, although it also depends on how dehydrated you are), which he usually uses to deliver vitamin cocktails, but I take mine, in his words, "straight with no chaser." I came in crying (I always cry at the nice naturopath's, always) and nauseous and tense, with a headache and a general weariness with life. A half hour later, and it was like someone had doused me with normal person healthy juice. My brain started working at a normal pace again, my headache was gone, I was hungry. I went to work and was able to teach class with actual focus.

In Las Vegas, they have this bus that roams around and rehydrates drunks. Observe:



Really, it's a thing. You get on, they hook you up with fluids/vitamins/probably some spiked redbull shit, and in an hour or two you're good to go. If they had this where I lived, I would totally go, although I might swish with some vodka first so I could fit in with the cool kids.

When I was in high school (probably after a cribs marathon), I was adamant that if I had a mansion someday I would put a Subway in the basement and keep it staffed 24 hours a day so that whenever I had a craving, I could EAT FRESH. To that ridiculous list, I would also like to add one of those exercise swimming pools with a current you have to swim against (I think they're fancy) and a rehydration bus. Or minivan, I'm not greedy. Who needs Gatorade when you have an asston of saline at the ready?!