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OK, this might be a tad unsavory, but I promise, it gets flossy on down the line. You see, I’ve been sick the past few days. (Apparently there’s “something going around” Los Angeles; I guess we’re a bit more connected than we think we are.) It started out as your average fever-with-chills, with some loss of appetite (I know, I know: feed a fever and drink like a fish — thanks, Mom) and a side-order of Texas-sized headache every time I tried to get out of bed or do anything besides light blogging or watching Sopranos re-runs. The last time I was this sick, I got food poisoning at John Green’s wedding, though I didn’t realize it until about midway through the ceremony, whereupon I promptly passed out during his vows. That was both the only time I’ve ever lost consciousness that quickly, and the single most embarrassing moment of my young life. (Though I’m sure something will come along to top it one of these days.)
Food poisoning, of course, runs its course fairly quickly in comparison to some viral infections, which is what I surmise is going on within my war-wracked shell of a body. Not having much recent experience with the latter, I was expecting the worst to be over when my fever subsided yesterday and I began to gradually get my energy back. Then came the second wave: the big D. That’s right: diphtheria. (Just kidding, the other D.)
It may sound comical to we Westerners, with all our adequate access to hygienic sanitation facilities and clean drinking water, not to mention our joking grade-school rhymes (”When you’re comin’ round first, and you feel something burst …”) — but the big D is far from a laughing matter in developing nations. Here are some sobering facts:
• It’s the cause of 5 to 8 million deaths in the developing world annually, particularly among small children and infants.
• The inability to properly separate drinking water from contaminated sewage is a major cause of infection.
• As evidence of how seriously the sanitation issue is, yesterday in Delhi, India representatives from 40 nations gathered to participate in a “World Toilet Conference.” They hope to identify inexpensive technologies that can help bring proper sanitation to nearly half the world’s population.
• According to estimates, 2.6bn people around the world lack access to a hygienic toilet.
• In India alone, more than 700 million people have no access to toilets which have proper waste disposal systems.
• In 1991, a cyclone claimed more than 139,000 lives along the Bangladeshi coast. The same year, 300,000 Bangladeshi children died from diarrheal dehydration.
• The best rehydration formula is a mixture of water, salts and a bit of sugar — essentially, Gatorade. (Why aren’t we sending Gatorade to developing nations instead of dumping it on football coaches’ heads?)
If anyone’s brave enough to share their own stories about the big D, I’m sure they’d make me feel a heckuva lot better!
well…I had to throw up really bad did that a few times then…*rumble in belly* and had to do a 360 and sit… I’m just glad it wasn’t the other way around first.
posted by Senia on 11-1-2007 at 9:20 am
my most embarassing moment of my entire life (ok, I’m only 28, but STILL!):
In 3rd grade, I had the “big D” on the playground. it just happened (I think the term is “sharting”). So I ran (waddled) to the bathrooms. The bathrooms at this school were accessed from the playground, and located in a way that you could stand outside, and see the feet of everyone in the stalls. So I hid in a stall and took my underwear off. Being a 3rd grader and grossed out, I left them on the floor. And of course it drew attention, since you could see the underwear from outside. I sat there sobbing as kids stood around, wanting to see who came out of the bathroom.
Finally, as usual, my big sister came to the rescue, put the underwear in the garbage, and took me through the gauntlet of teasing kids to the nurse’s office.
So just be grateful that you had the big D at home, and not on an elementary school playground!
posted by beyond anonymous on 11-1-2007 at 9:25 am
On a business trip to a Central American country, we went on an boat excursion that included a snorkeling stop. I noticed that we had anchored close to a city, but did not think much of it. I swam around for a while and dove down to get a closer look at some fish. As I was ascending, someone kicked the snorkel out of my mouth and I swallowed a large mouthful of water.
As we were taking the bus to the airport the next day, I started feeling a little ill. By the time we got to the terminal, I needed to go. So I went. About a half hour later, again. Half an hour later, again. By this time, I was raw and I was in trouble. However, the fun continued. I was dehydrated, so I had to drink. If I drank was water, a half hour later, out came something very close to water. If it was a soft drink, half an hour later, it was the Pespi poopsie. And I can’t even describe the exquisite agony caused by barely processed grapefruit juice making its grand re-entry through an opening that had by then been essentially acid washed and sandpapered.
This pattern continued through a four hour flight, the car ride home, and the rest of the evening. Any and all medicine took the express out of town, so to speak, offering me no relief. I was exhausted.
Unfortunately, I fell asleep. One of the benefits of being awake, even if miserable, is that it gives one the ability to sense a need to find a toilet and to take the appropriate steps to control one’s functions until properly positioned on said equipment. Sleep deprived me of this ability, with predictable results.
This being my first toilet training accident in approximately 37 years, I was appalled and vowed to remain awake and vigilant. This vigilance lasted approximately one hour, at which point I fell asleep and again made boom-boom in my drawers.
And twice more that night.
My wife slept through all of it. She did not realize what had happened until she discovered the next morning four pairs of freshly washed (and seriously bleached) underwear. Although I feel no moral culpability, to this day, I consider myself diminished in her eyes.
I recovered the next day, but got ill again a week or so later. This one I couldn’t shake. Hepatitis. Not so funny. It ran its course in a month or so.
Lessons: Don’t snorkel close to a Central American city. If you get a mouth full of sea water while snorkeling close to a Central American city, don’t swallow. And if you have the squirts of death, avoid grapefruit juice.
posted by Moon on 11-1-2007 at 10:18 am
I am blessed with an irritable bowel… which for most people translates into constipation, bloating, etc. Not me. I get the bid D nearly every day. Pretty much sucks big time.
posted by ibs-er on 11-1-2007 at 10:59 am
Where I am in Mexico (not a touristy area at all), almost every shop, even the teensy ones, carries Pedialyte or some electrolyte drink specifically for rehydration after intestinal distress. At least around here people can afford to buy it, instead of having to continue to drink the contaminated water.
Oh, and a heads up, the Coco flavour is by far the best.
posted by mitzy on 11-1-2007 at 11:15 am
I worked at an animal shelter and part of job duties was to check the rear ends of kittens.
Why you say? Because the D is common with very young kittens and when they are going that much the muscles of their spincters weaken and can protrude.
And this protrusions is VERY bad and dangerous.
So I would have to check for this.
But I couldn’t resist petting and holding them. Even if getting a lil kitten D on me was the price to pay.
posted by Sweet Pea on 11-1-2007 at 11:46 am
Sphincters!
Sorry, can’t spell today….
posted by Sweet Pea on 11-1-2007 at 11:47 am
ibs-er - don’t worry, you’re not alone. I have the same kind of IBS and my life is just the same. Daily D. Ugh. Do you have any particular med you’re taking that might help?
posted by KHM on 11-1-2007 at 11:53 am
The worst is living on a college campus, where all the communal living and swapped fluids (intentional or otherwise) cause stomach viruses to spread like wild fire. Earlier this semester, we were hit with the “36-hour cholera.” Its symptoms basically consisted of the sitting-on-the-toilet-while-puking-into-a-mixing-bowl scene. Terrible. Even more terrible so to share a toilet with three other sickies in a campus apartment, have one roommate occupying the toilet, panic, and have to puke in the sink. Or to be puking so hard, that you squirt liquids you didn’t know you had into your pajama bottoms. I was actually happy to learn that it happened to my roommate first, so when I pooped my pants, it wasn’t nearly as humiliating.
posted by Ampersand on 11-1-2007 at 11:54 am
I was absolutely sure once that I had a UTI, but I didn’t have time to go to the doctor before I went to visit my then boyfriend. I thought I’d self-treat it until then by just consuming cranberry everything. I drank a whole Ocean-Spray thing of cranberry juice and a full bag of craisins (dried cranberries, they’re like raisins) in less than 12 hours. Long story short, I still had the UTI, along with massive diarrhea from all the sugars in the cranberry products. Never again.
posted by Kelly on 11-1-2007 at 11:58 am
Thanks for sharing everybody! And Sweet Pea — “kitten D” is definitely the phrase of the day.
posted by Ransom on 11-1-2007 at 12:01 pm
Moon - that is the funniest story I have read in a long time. Thanks for sharing your pain, you have a gift for making terrible things LOL funny. I will be going to Central American country in February - and I will be taking a big PASS on the snorkeling, I promise! Thanks for the warning!
posted by anne on 11-1-2007 at 12:02 pm
A few years ago, I took a trip to LA to visit my best friend for the first time since she had moved out there. It was late December and there had been a HORRIBLE virus going around the great state of Ohio (possibly every state, who knows)that made you both vomit and have the Big D. Not soon after I had landed, I grabbed some snacks that consisted of Reese’s Cups and Trail Mix (late night power snack). WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE!!!! I spent the entire next day in the spare bathroom, liquids/semi-solids spewing from both ends. It’s bad enough having this happen, but compile it with a.)being in a unknown city; b.) being in a house with 6 other people; c.) Reese Cup flavored vomit; and d.)it was New Year’s Eve, and you have a complex for life. It only lasted for a day and a half, but it seemed like an eternity. Not only that, but one of that guys that lived there picked it up from me the next day. I felt horrible.
Oh, and I’ve never fully recovered my taste for Reese Cups or trail mix back.
posted by Summer on 11-1-2007 at 12:19 pm
One more note….
To you sufferers of IBS, how about trying probiotics? Just go to GNC or Vitamin Shoppe and get Acidopholus or probiotic pills. It actually works!
And also try Kefir. Its a liquidy yogurt drink thing and it has probiotics in it. Plus its VERY good for you! I drink it everyday. But do yourself a favor and get the flavored kind.
P.S. KITTEN D!!!!!
posted by Sweet Pea on 11-1-2007 at 1:21 pm
KHM - The prescription meds just make me nauseous, unfortunately. Oh well. Is there something you use that works?
Sweet Pea - Probiotics do help a bit, I can definitely notice a difference, just nothing life-altering.
posted by ibs-er on 11-1-2007 at 1:45 pm
Man, I think you jinxed me! I’ve been to the bathroom twice in the past 3 hours.
I have not been diagnosed with IBS, but the big D certainly likes me. My sister and I call it ED (explosive …) and I have a friend who talks about the EDF who is a fairy that goes around “blessing” people. Another friend, who suffered from amoebic dysentery (and the meds that treat it which can make you sicker than the amoebas) likes to think of it as an alien that lives in your tummy. His name is Pokai, and he’s not very nice.
My worst recent experience was when I was this summer when I was traveling for 8 days in rural Mexico. I picked up some sort of bug because every time I ate or drank anything I’d have to use the facilities. This was especially inconvenient because my travels involved numerous 13-hour overnight bus rides. These were not normal bus rides though, they happened to be on the windiest roads ever. Thus, I was miserable with the big D and — to add to the fun — car sick (along with half the bus).
posted by kw on 11-1-2007 at 2:03 pm
My family and I took a cruise to Belize and Cozumel. I made the mistake of eating some of the local food. The food was delicious, some of the best i’ve ever had; the aftermath was horrid.
On the last day of the cruise the Big D decided to show up. I was in the bathroom every hour.
Thankfully I was able to control the D on the plane ride home.
The serious trouble came when I got home. I went out to dinner with some family, but I still wasnt feeling well. I made matters worse by having a large plate of chicken parm with spaghetti. My stomach started gurguling.
I decided to head on home, I was an hour away and the drive was excruciating. I was clenching my cheeks together has hard as I could. I had to stop the D from freeing itself. I’m sweating purfousley, my cheeks are clenched and I’m starting to get muscle fatigue in my posterior.
About 20 mintues from home I couldnt hold it any more. I saw a movie theatre from the highway, I pulled in it parking lot and ran inside.
I made it into the bathroom stall and ran to the toliet. I BARELY got my pants down when the big D broke free. It was like a shotgun blast. There was D everywhere, all over the wall, the floor, the toliet, the handle, the tp dispenser. It was a horrid mess. I did my business while laughing to myself about what just happened. I was going to clean up the mess but i was too imbarassed and I was worried people would see me. I cleaned myself up and ran out of there fast.
That was my worst experience with the Big D.
posted by United Fartists on 11-1-2007 at 2:07 pm
I lived in Baja California for two years and I got salmonella from eating tacos sold by street vendors. I lived in the hospital for the next 15 days as they tried out different drugs on me to see what would work. The worst part is that in Mexico, the plumbing is so bad that you can’t flush toilet paper down the crapper.It has to be put in a little waste basket so it can announce to everyone what has just past with your lower digestive tract. I must say though, this wasn’t nearly as scary as the time I got dysentary in China. Anyway, I live in California now and I realize how deeply blessed I am everytime I toss TP into the pot, secure in the knowledge that one good flush will make it all go away.
posted by kelly p on 11-1-2007 at 2:36 pm
Before my trip to Mexico City, I was advised to go on a strict probotics regimen before during and after the trip. While there, I enjoyed the food (home made and in restaurants) and didn’t suffer from a single symptom. I’m definitely glad I took the advice, so I’m passing it on.
posted by Traveled Some on 11-1-2007 at 2:55 pm
Kelly (#10): Cranberries - especially cranberry juice which is often fortified - have a lot of vitamin C. I found out the hard way that too much vitamin C in a short amount of time will definitely cause the big D.
posted by tej on 11-1-2007 at 3:18 pm
The restaurants in Mexico are usually okay because they use filtered water for their ice cubes and drinks. Homemade foods are okay too because people usually buy fresh ingredients and wash their hands and sanitize things before cooking. With the street vendors, sometimes food sits out for a while or hands are washed over and over again in the same old bucket of dirty water and sometimes meat isn’t properly cooked either because it is prepared on a twirling spit where the heat source is located at the bottom and the meat is cut from the top.
posted by kelly p on 11-1-2007 at 3:44 pm
What’s funnier (after the fact) than the big D?
I was on a date (a DATE!!), we drove about 2 hours to see a Dave Matthews concert. About an hour into the drive, my tummy started yucky-rumbling.
Through backed up traffic, finding a place to park, walking 100’s of yards to find a porta-potty, waiting in line all with those horrible cramps, clenches and sweats. LOL I finally got in one of those (un-soundproofed) potties and unleashed-nevermind the line of people waiting behind me in line. I could have just died. When I came out, they clapped. I bowed. What can ya do?
BTW, I was going to use this as my “Charlie Brown” story a few weeks ago.
I just have WAY too many of these stories. :D
Get well soon!
posted by mrs.djs on 11-1-2007 at 4:05 pm
Mrs. DJs — thanks for a real cringer of a story! :)
posted by Ransom on 11-1-2007 at 4:31 pm
Last summer,I moved in with my boyfriend and his roomate when I had to be hospilized. I had an ovarian cyst rupture and it made me really sick. The docs gave me a bunch of pain killers and told me to drink gatoraid. Well they forgot to mention that pain killers back you up. So I went to my doctors a few days later and was put on some laxatives. I continued my routine of gatoraid, pain killer and lax and everything was great. The next day, we had a party with all of our friends,out of nowhere I got really sick and ran to the only bathroom in the house. I started to go D and then out of nowhere I started to puke, there I was on the ground, head in the tub and bottom in the air and still going! I was so sick, I yelled for help and my boyfriend came and started to laugh really hard. Everytime I have to go D I make sure that a garbage can near so I don’t have to reach for the tub and the bowl at the same time. :)
posted by LauraD on 11-1-2007 at 4:54 pm
sorry you’re sick! my roommate just came down with the same thing. she’s thinking it was some weird beef? not that the LA water isn’t already adverse…
posted by Becky on 11-1-2007 at 5:02 pm
Ugh. Sixteenth birthday, stomach flu. I lost 7 pounds in two days. Not. Fun.
Feel better though!
posted by Lea on 11-1-2007 at 5:58 pm
hey becky — I don’t think I’ve eaten too much weird beef lately, though my doctor took a particular interest in my recent trip to rural Maryland, and how much well water I might’ve had to drink while there. You never know …
posted by Ransom on 11-1-2007 at 6:01 pm
The worst bout of D was when I got food poisoning at a Ballet Production. I ate like a thousand of these mini swiss chocolate rolls and the next day I couldn’t even go to mass. *side note: Church is also a VERY bad place to get the big D* Even when I thought about the cakes I got a horrible ill feeling!
And also there was that time in 7th grade when whenever I heard a rumble in the side of my hip I had to run to the potty. Eventually my classmates caught on and everytime I got up they’d say “Fire in the hole!” Children are too cruel!
posted by Rachel* on 11-1-2007 at 8:32 pm
ransom, i’m from MD, where did your trip take you in my little neck of the woods?
posted by steve on 11-1-2007 at 8:55 pm
Yes, the big D definitely sucks. But talking about it can sometimes come in handy if you’ve got no shame. All you have to do is mention the words “ED,” and you can get out of anything you don’t want to do - no questions asked.
Also, I can relate to United. One day while driving to my school that was 45 minutes away, the big D hit. I was still 10 minutes away but couldn’t wait that long - I was at the leakage point. I had to pull into a gas station and use a wet, dirty bathroom that I probably caught another disease from. Ugh.
posted by Eva on 11-1-2007 at 9:12 pm
I’m living in rural China as a volunteer teacher for a couple of years and I have been plagued by health issues since shortly after arriving. I was basically sick all the time.
Several hospital trips and IVs later (the Chinese love those things) I called my doctor in America and the nurse told me the name of a med I needed to take for a week to clear some bacteria out of my small intestine. There are about six hundred billion ways to get bacteria in your system here, so I guess that’s not much of a shocker.
And hurrah! Thirteen months worth of sickness ended. The only downside is that I seemed to have some sort of allergic reaction to the meds, but I managed to make it to the end of the week and I hope that’s the last time I have to do that.
posted by meg on 11-2-2007 at 1:45 am
Ya gotta be careful these days talkin’ about ED…there IS more than one meaning to that one!! LOL!
My episodes with D were in the months after having my gall bladder removed. I was eating large quantities of dry, air-popped popcorn to try and soak up the liquid on a daily basis…thankfully my innards finally adjusted to not having a gall bladder!
posted by Ginger on 11-2-2007 at 8:36 am
After dealing with IBS for years now, I will never again buy a car without leather seats!
Worst experience ever? Oh, how can I pick just one? Driving my mother home after visiting my father in the hospital, and we get stuck in a construction zone. No way in or out, and well, I’m already at breaking point. After another 20 minutes at standstill, doing everything I can to keep my mind off things, well, nature took it’s course.
There is nothing more humbling than having to continue a conversation for the rest of the car ride, pretending that the Big Brown Elephant is not in the room.
posted by Snapper on 11-2-2007 at 1:52 pm
Thats nothing I got dysentery, and food poising within a week of each other. And that was a week ago. Pretty much i live in spain, where these two sicknesses are as unknown as in the US. I ate a bad sandwich one night and next thing I know dysentery. when I got better I traveled to oviedo to go to the prince of austuria awards{look it up, its famous} only to get food poising from a chinese resturant. Overall i’ve lost ten lbs which isint gonna kill a guy whos 200 lbs but an african kid, YES.
posted by will on 11-3-2007 at 11:03 am
I was helping my girlfriend’s friend move into her new apartment, and we had done heavy drinking the night before (it was 9 o clock and we went to bed around 5). We were moving things and I got that feeling and knew D was coming for a visit. I buttress my cheeks together and make it through til we move everything. I get upstairs when I can’t take it anymore, and all the doors are locked! The only rooms accessible are the kitchen and the living room. My car is out of town, and I don’t know the area, so I have to take her friend’s keys and drive to the nearest place I could find, which was a gas station, and when I came out of the bathroom, the attendant shook her head at me. Man that was embarassing.
posted by mike on 11-5-2007 at 1:40 am
O.K. This is fairly tame so if you’re reading the comments and saying “EEWWW” you can take a semi-breather. The worst big D that I had was after I helped my elderly neighbor fix his tracter. It was a simply fix. He “rewarded” me with a big hunk of his wifes homemade blueberry pie, with three big scoops of vanilla ice cream on top. I’m Lactose Intolerant. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful and I didn’t think it would cause too big a problem so I ate it. I had the big D for two weeks. If I didn’t take a dose of Pepto Bismol every few hours the big D would come back. I used up three larger size bottles, far exceeding the maximum dosage until I discovered I could stop taking it. Perhaps something was wrong with the pie, on top of my lactose intolerance.
posted by Tdave on 11-5-2007 at 4:32 am
Moon- Ihave to hand it to you… I´m sorry for your crappy experience but that made my eyes water…
The funniest D story I know happened to my brother on his first date with his current wife. He was not feeling well but had wanted to go out with her for a very long time so he decided to go anyway. One dinner and light conversation later, when they were both starting to relax, the girl told a joke and along with the laughter creeped out a bit of D. He had to get up, run to the bathroom of the restaurant, finish his business, throw away the underwear and take the girl home. She never noticed. Even now that they are married my bro has sworn me to secrecy.
posted by GTT on 11-7-2007 at 10:02 am
An unfortuante experience I had at work:
After filling the toilet with a fiery hot, black liquid that came from hell I sat sweating waiting for the next wave. Unfortunately, the next wave turned out to be baseball-sized lump of solid turd. I fired a fastball out of my ass and right into the dark smelly liquid sending a fountain of shit upward. It sprayed the back of my shirt and hair and all over the wall behind me. I cleaned up the area as well as I could but there was no way to clean off the shirt or my hair. I snuck out of the office and drove home, took a shower, changed clothes and came back to work. No one even asked where I went.
posted by Ralph on 11-8-2007 at 6:05 pm
Reach for the Immodium.
posted by Sara on 9-1-2008 at 7:41 pm