ACK!!!
My health has been a concern of mine for more than 10 years. Some problems are just a nag. I'm tone deaf so badly that I can't tune a guitar by ear any more because of my inability to hear tones. I've been playing guitar since I was 11 years old. My own son can call from the other side of the world and I have to ask "Who is this?" when I get on the phone with him.
Other problems i have are much more of a problem. IBS. That doesn't stand for International Building Supply. It stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I have IBS. When I first noticed that I had a problem was in Summer/Fall of 1998. I would go eat lunch and 20 minutes later I would RUN to the bathroom and if you got in the way I would have almost knocked you down. At that point I was drinking 6 to 7 Classic Cokes a day....(Yes, you read that correctly 6 or 7 a DAY). I have said before that when I stopped drinking Coke it was like a heroin addict getting off of drugs. If i watched someone else drinking a coke...I almost got the shakes like crazy...
In 1999 a lot happened to me. I was having a long distance relationship with Randi and I was also trying to make a decision to leave the military and I was involved with getting a Microsoft Certification for Windows NT4. Talk about ACK!... and then on top of all of that I got deployed to Turkey in the summer of 1999 on short notice. I was on the last aircraft to leave Shaw AFB for Turkey on this deployment.
IBS has been a moving target. I didn't eat red meat for 5 years. Now I can't eat pasta. A low carb diet has really helped and new meds that I received in Aug 2008 have helped greatly. I can have a cup of coffee now and not really have any problems with that. I can even have a coke during lunch without a problem. Yesterday, however, I went way overboard....I had 3 cups of coffee and at least 5 diet cokes because my sinuses were not feeling good at all!.....and I have a weakness for chocolate
I would stop eating chocolate but I'm not a quitter!... I at least had 2.5 chocolate bars yesterday....Yesterday was a bad day for me...I didn't just fall off the wagon, I JUMPED off the wagon and liked it! LOL
Getting out of the military in Feb 2000 was like jumping off a cliff. I really loved being in the military but I felt that I needed to deal with my health MORE than I needed to be in the military. I tried to go in the air national guard but when told I had IBS they said "You would have to get a dr to say that this is a misdiagnoses" I laughed in the Dr. face when he said that.....I have it and it is not going anywhere fast!...I would give IBS back to wherever I got it from in a second.
The only good thing that has come from having IBS is the fact that being more than 20% disabled according to the VA sent me to college for 4.5 years and I did get a degree from Francis Marion on 17 Dec, 2005. IBS has been a two edged sword. If i could get rid of IBS I would gladly repay the $2500 per semester the VA paid for me to go to college in a second.
You really don't realize what you have lost until you have lost it. At one point in time before Aug 2008 I was a slave to where the bathroom was at all times....That 7.5 mile drive to work every morning was just bad....there is NOTHING like feeling you are going to foul yourself and there isn't a thing you can do about it but HOPE it won't happen....it isn't a nice feeling at all.....I don't think having someone hold a gun to my head would scare me as badly!...ACK
Thankfully things are better today than they have been since being told I had IBS in 1999.
I also have chronic hip pain in my left hip from a fall I took during the first gulf war and that is just a nag but my gut problems trump every other problem I have.
At times I have had people that didn't understand why I wouldn't eat their food because eating it would have caused me to be in the bathroom in the very near future....Next time someone refuses to eat some of your food they might have a good reason not to eat what is being served.
Thankfully I wake up every morning and I'm greatly thankful that I have the life I have no matter how it might flux from one moment to the next or how my health might affect me.
Ok...I'm off to start the day and fix a few broken computers.
Have a great day
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