I had an gastric incident a couple of weeks ago and thought, "Oh no....I'm getting Jim's c-diff." Now, I've had inflammatory bowel disease for 20 years and I know what a gastric incident is, but this is no regular gastric incident. I popped one of his flagyl and it went away. So I thought it was odd but just a strange coincidence. Fast forward to last Friday. I'm on my way to Voorhees to pick up Jimmy from the camp bus and I get about five minutes away and all of a sudden my insides are going "snap, crackle, pop...snap, crackle, pop" and I'm suddenly dying. I need the bathroom really, really, really bad. I'm sweating and bopping my leg up and down and doing anything I can not to lose it. I'm waiting in the Stop and Shop parking lot for the bus to get there and I just can't sit there anymore. I run into the store to use the bathroom. I'm still dying when I come out. But there's the bus with just Jimmy on it. The bus had to wait for me. I apologize and hustle Jimmy into the car. I didn't even strap him into his seat. And of course, now there's a lot of traffic. I make it about a mile and I just can't hold it anymore and there's no place to pull over. Even if I had pulled over I would have never been able to walk anyway. I wound up going all over myself. In the half an hour that it takes to go from Voorhees back to Sicklerville I went eight times. Yes- eight times. It's running down my leg and into my shoes. Jimmy's just oblivious to it all, because he's a typical selfish six year old. "Can we have a song on the radio, Mom?" I'm sweating and dying and I yell at him, "No! Mommy's sick! Shut up!" When we get close to home I'm thinking, how in the hell and I going to get into the house without the neighbors seeing me? And I say to Jimmy, "Go into your camp bag and get me a towel." He ignores me. I ask him again more urgently. He tells me, "Why can't you just go in the house yourself and get one?" Now I get my voice up, "Will you PLEASE get me a towel out of your bag! I'll wash it for you!" He rolls down the window instead and says, "Mom...you STINK." Gee...thanks kid. In the end he winds up pulling a towel out. I round the corner and of course this is the day that all of the neighbors are out. And I can't pull the car into the garage because there's too much stuff in there.
He gets out of the car and runs inside and I quickly wrap the towel around myself and RUN into the garage and shut the door. I'm covered from shoulder to shoes in shit and there's a trail of about a dozen spots on the garage floor in a trail. I look like the shit monster from the movie Dogma.
Yeah....this is what I looked like. So I strip on the garage floor and run upstairs to get into the bathtub and it takes three fills of the water to get myself cleaned off. Then I called Jim and told him what happened, and to please watch his step on the way in through the garage. I get changed, and now I'm debating what to do. I know this is c-diff because there is a very distinctive smell to c-diff. O.k, I know that's gross, but it's true. It's not a smell that's immediately recognized as poop...it's more like a toxic smell. But if I take one of Jim's flagyl I'll contaminate any stool sample that's taken to identify the c-diff. But I'm in sooooo much pain. And on top of it, now I'll have to cancel my bacterial overgrowth test for August 10th because you have to be off all antibiotics for three weeks. What to do...what to do. Jim gets home about six and I couldn't take it anymore....I took one of his pills and very quickly found some relief. But now I need to convince a doctor that I need my OWN flagyl, so what to do? Jim paged the gastroenterologist in Philly. Kozuch wasn't on call, but some other dude called back. He said yes- the c-diff can be passed on, but he can't prescribe flagyl without a positive identification of c-diff because flagyl could be masking something else. Who gives a damn if it's masking something else? Besides, we have a lot of experience with c-diff in this household....we know what it is. And when Jim was in the hospital the tests for c-diff were inconclusive....the only person who had it positively identified was his primary care, and that was AFTER he had already been admitted and was being treated for it. Not for nothing, but we're back to this "guy" thing. Jim gets treated, and I'm the hysterical female. So this doctor says I should just hold off taking the flagyl and go to the emergency room. That's all fine and good, but the practical side of this is...I already have a car full of shit. If I DIDN'T take the flagyl, how the hell would I MAKE it to the emergency room? And I know this is not a virus because with c-diff you're not nauseous...you're going like crazy and you're still hungry.
So I clean up the garage floor with bleach and a scrub brush and go out and give the car a cursory cleaning. I feel lousy and can't give it a good cleaning. Besides...that would involve the shampooer and I don't feel like lugging that up from the basement. Then I'm debating....go to the ER or stay home on my couch, but in the end I know I need the meds, so I go. They give me i.v. fluids and are waiting for a sample. Well, I took the flagyl, and that stops the diarrhea. I don't think there's going to be a sample. Now I just have the ass dry-heaves. I keep telling these people, "You want a sample? I've got a couple of garbage bags FULL of samples back at the house. I'll get my husband to bring one over." They ignore me. I was serious as a heart-attack. Then the doctor is telling me that one flagyl won't stop the poop. This is where I wish Jim were here with me because he could have verified that it does...and DID...twice for him. But I didn't want him to come with me because that would have meant dragging Jimmy out and keeping him out until all hours of the night. In the end I got this ER doctor to give me the meds.
Let me tell you something about this 500 mg tablet of flagyl. I don't know how the hell Jim gets the pill down. I can't swallow this thing. Every time I try I'm retching and gagging on it and it gets stuck in my throat. I got the pharmacist to give me double the amount of the 250 mg pills. Oh, and by the way....Jim ate a little pizza this weekend. He had to cut it up but it went down. I think the throat stretching and one more round of Vital stim out to do it for him. I hope.
So Saturday I spent all afternoon shampooing my car. I washed all my clothes....I would have thrown them out but I was wearing my absolute favorite pair of shorts and they don't sell them anymore...Eddie Bauer bermudas and they fit perfectly. So thank you Miele washing machine. I washed my shoes....I washed my bra...but I had to throw my purse in the garbage. So Saturday night I decide to go to JC Penney and buy a new summer purse. Jim's teasing me relentlessly. He grabs this junky little bag I packed up temporarily and holds it on his butt and says, "It's the perfect size to go poop in!" That's all I've been hearing all weekend. As I was cleaning the car he's yelling out..."The inside's supposed to be black, not brown!"
Then Sunday we both catch Jimmy's cold. We can't win. Jim's sitting in the living room looking at Jimmy playing a video game and says to me, "We've had such bad luck. This kid better grow up to be a friggin' nuclear scientist. If he's homeless then that's just not going to be fair."
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