The following post was originally written in April this year. It has taken me this long to share it as its content might put some of you off your dinner. For this, I apologise. Don’t read if you don’t find hearing about poo mildly amusing!
The past couple of days have been good. I have had visits from some of my best friends who have brought a smile to my face. Two of my best girlfriends were fortunate enough to hear the telling of the Codeine constipation story, the story I am going to tell you now.
So, one of the main side effects of taking Codeine is the fact that you get a bit bunged up in the poo department. I was prescribed Senakot and later Laxidose, which is a powder that you mix with water, which tastes like you have taken a swig from a swimming pool…yuk. Originally I was very good at taking them but, as I felt I didn’t need to take as much Codeine because I was managing my pain, I started to take it less and less and then, not at all.
In the past couple of weeks I have experienced the worst pain of the whole prolapsed disc saga and therefore had to take the full dose of Codeine prescribed to me. Sensible people would have thought, ‘I should start to take the laxatives again’, but unfortunately sense doesn’t really come into it when you feel like someone is drilling a hot poker into both your spine and left leg whilst someone else is trying to rip your left leg off using only their hands and brute force.
I didn’t take the laxatives. I thought it was fine. I thought that perhaps my digestive system would take pity on me and let the waste leave me regularly and with no discomfort. How wrong I was.
Last Tuesday I went to the toilet at 2.20pm, feeling that a number two was ready to go. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been for a few days, worry started to set in. Fifteen minutes later, only a pitiful amount had passed into the toilet bowl, and much like when a baby is on the brink of being born, I knew there was a hell of a lot more to come. I started to sweat, I started to think about what they tell you in labour regarding breathing, because at this point it was pretty obvious to me that nothing less than a poo baby was coming and this was going to be hard work.
Add to this that I can’t sit down without feeling like my leg is going to implode and my spine is going to fall apart and I’m sure you can appreciate that I was facing defecatory hell.
In this time my husband had gone to pick up our children from school and had arrived home with them. Normally, I would give them a kiss and a hug and ask them how their day had been. They would say “I can’t remember” and then go off to play, leaving me pondering whether all 5 year olds have such a short memory span.
Instead, I was huffing and puffing and trying not to cry on the toilet and wouldn’t get to hear that they couldn’t remember anything about their day for another two hours.
After these two hours, I gave up. I grabbed my crutches, got a bundle of toilet roll and stuffed it into the back of my knickers and hobbled back to bed. This is normally quite a painful trip anyway but on this occasion it was even more difficult. I felt like I had a baby’s head hanging out of my arse! I know this is gross and I can assure you that there was nothing hanging there, chance would have been a fine thing.
I lay on my side and took deep breaths and waited…and waited…and waited for any sign of movement. Anything, a slight rumble in my tummy would get my hopes up and come to nothing. I resigned myself to thinking that it was going to be a long night.
It wasn’t until I was watching The Great British Sewing Bee a few hours later that I thought I might be brave enough to try again. I waited until the end of the program, just to make sure that it was absolutely on the cards that my poo baby was ready to be released into the world. I hobbled into the en-suite and regarded the toilet with a look of pity mixed with familiarity, ‘come on now you porcelain prince’, I thought to myself, ‘don’t let me down’.
I put my hands on the frame that I’d been sent home from hospital with the week before and slowly turned around, lowering myself down to sit and await my fate. I won’t bother you with the exact details, but it was tough. I was determined though and thought about the relief I would feel afterwards. This pain and discomfort will be short lived and I will emerge victorious, and probably feeling slightly violated.
Half an hour of hard work later, my poo baby emerged and, my goodness, he was colossal. I was disgusted with myself and at a complete loss as to how I had managed to accumulate such a mass of waste. What sort of pressure has this been putting on my back? I might as well have been limping around with a half-tonne weight strapped to my coccyx. I hastily stuffed toilet paper down the loo to cover it and called for my husband, as I can’t reach to flush the toilet in my current state.
My husband flushed the toilet for me after I had pleaded with him not to look at its contents.
“It hasn’t gone down”, he said.
“Did you look?”
“Yes. It is bigger than my beer can. I am proud”
As my husband looked at me, trying not to laugh, I saw a flicker of pride in his eyes. He has been through a lot with me recently and is effectively my carer when he’s not a shit hot music teacher. And even after seeing my gigantic poo, he can still look at me with pride and love. He’s ace.
A day later, all evidence of the poo baby was gone and my bits all felt normal again.
I have been taking my laxatives regularly ever since.
Letty Mack 