Warning, this post discusses crap. Literally, crap. But it’s not very graphic about the crap itself. I’m going to split the post anyway so that those who do not want to listen to me be excited that I can now (as opposed to in the past) detect the warning signs of impacted stools before they happen.
I’ve had intestinal blockages and near-blockages in the past. I never felt anything. As in, I got to the point of vomiting, and had a “pregnant-looking” belly as hard as a rock, but I never felt any sensations in my midsection to suggest there was anything wrong. I had both really bad body awareness, and was often not able to communicate about the vast majority of pain.
This week, I’d been feeling something really nasty there, and not knowing what. Last night, I realized what, from feeling the hard-as-a-rock belly feeling. And realized that the sensations I was experiencing were pain (note: “pain” to me is one word encompassing so many different things that I’ve never been able to figure them all out, so this is one more added to the list for me). And that they were connected to something that could turn serious.
And… I actually managed to pass the stool last night. I had to stay up all night and use a good deal of tricks, but I managed to pass it… and then everything that had been stuck behind it.
This may sound like discussing the disgusting for its own sake, but this is seriously an important thing for me. I think I’ll be able to from now on take steps to stop it even before the point it got to today (which was not at the emergency-level point it’s gotten to in the past). I now know what those awful sensations are, and that they’re connected to my body, and so forth.
I also know that if I’m:
- Not feeling like eating a lot
- Feeling that particular nasty sensation in that particular area (which can be hard to locate, but I think I’ve got a better clue now)
- Finding that my belly feels more like a rock than a belly when I press on it
Then I should probably do something. (In fact, I should probably do something at the first sign, rather than waiting, but now I’m more aware of what the first signs are, which is very useful.) And I should probably do something before it gets to the point of being so painful that I can’t sleep.
I’m noticing that for some reason I’m suddenly getting a lot of body connectedness that I didn’t have before. I can blow my nose, I can detect about-to-become-impacted crap, I can feel all sorts of things I couldn’t place before. There’s still a lot of sensations like “There’s something bad. Okay, it’s pain I guess. But where is it?” But I seem to finally be mapping a lot of them to my body. I hope the maps stay put.