Today's Illness Update

Okay. I've eaten my probiotic yogurt. I've taken a couple of doses of Pepto Bismol. I've had a half litre of water to drink. My tummy still hurts, but it seems reasonable that I should get on with my day. It includes recovering the requisition for a stool sample to go to the lab, perhaps a visit to the medical clinic about 2 miles away with a bus trip to get there, and, possibly, doing some laundry. That's plenty for me.

I really am reaching my limits of tolerance when it comes to this particular bout of illness. It's tough enough to have ALS, but to have a belly ache, to be constipated, to feel like I am going to throw up almost constantly; this goes beyond what I can take. I have seriously contemplated not treating this infection at all, just letting it get really bad and then dying from kidney failure. I mean, how could that be any worse that what I am going through right now?

Of course I won't do that. It is not in my nature to surrender so easily. While my reason for living are becoming more limited each day, I still have enough in my life to make me look forward to, if not tomorrow, next week. While my quality of life is becoming severely compromised, it's still good enough that I can enjoy a day, even a day like today where I am ill and in pain. What I have to do is get the energy and effort out to do the tasks that need being done.

That's where it gets trick; the tasks that need being done. I have been constipated lately. Last night I finally had a bowel movement, the first one since Friday morning. Thanks to the Pepto, the Immodium, and whatever else might be pounding at my gut, my stools are hard and black, with yellow stripes in them. Good God! I'm shitting a Bumble Bee! No wonder it hurts so much.

I'll get through this. Or maybe not. I have absolutely no control over my own body any more. I can't "walk it off". I can't drive over to the doctors offices. I can sit on the commode chair for 4 hours, but I can't push anything out, which is kind of cruel in it's own way, because on Friday morning I couldn't keep anything in. And I definitely don't want to go back to the hospital. That's how all of this began.