Thursday, May 21, 2015

17th November 2014

My Ulcerative Colitis is hanging in there. I still have it and I am

21 May 2015

Well, Monday, the 18th of May I finally experienced the dreaded crap your pants episode I've heard so much about. I just finished my shift working at Costco and I had decided to go shopping. I had time until I had to pick up my daughter from school and going home then going to school can be burdensome.

I was at the opposite end of the store when a horribly sick feeling rushed all over my body. Then the urge to crap overwhelmed me. I've never been out of control of my bodily functions before in my life that I have a memory of, so I thought I would be fine. As always, I was alarmed and concerned and had to put forth effort to hold it in, but I've never failed before so I didn't panic. I started making my way over to the washrooms, but it was a long trek and I knew it. I had two extra shirts in my shopping cart that I brought with me from home to change into after sweating in the morning when I stock shelves in order to be fresh when I talk to members. I also had a third shirt that I left at work from a different day that I didn't change into after the store opened and I had decided to bring it home today. My purse and an un-purchased box of garbage bags, which we needed at home, were in my cart as well.

I had to push the cart and I couldn't leave it. Never had a shopping cart been so burdensome and slow. I couldn't run very well with a cart because of the danger of banging into someone so I had taken a back row along the concrete outer wall around the store to get to the washroom. I was at the furthest possible corner anyway, so it didn't seem like this outer route would make that big of a difference and might even be faster.

As I tried to maintain composure in the face of the public while pushing my cart as fast as possible along the wall without hurting anyone, a surprising squirt exited my rear end. I did not panic as I didn't really count this as crapping myself. Because a little discharge escaped there was nothing to cause alarm. Before I even finished forming my thought concerning the matter, another more violent little discharge took place and I immediately concluded that this was definitely of concern at this point. I had no idea that last squirt was coming, and it was larger than the first. I couldn't run, or more would escape, but it didn't seem to matter how delicately I placed my feet or how desperately I tried to use my mind and strength to overcome my bodily urges, because before the second squirt had exited, a full blown loss of bowl composure overcame me. I had no idea what to do at this point. My co-workers would definitely notice that there was a problem at this point. "Who gives a crap!" I thought. I have more important things to take care of and if my body is going to do this, how can I be blamed? I took my sweater off (it was a freezing cold day out with snow coming down in pelts of tiny ice bullets - I knew this from pushing carts outside for a couple of hours that day) and I was still cold when I returned to the store to work inside which is why my sweater was still on. I wrapped it around my waist hoping no one could see how obviously I had crapped myself. Luckily, I was wearing jeans, and the crap was extremely runny (but not without it's chunks as I discovered in the washroom). An explosive crap let loose as I was securing the sweater at my waist which ran almost to my runner and definitely down to my calf. Could I somehow wrap my other sweater lower to cover the lower part of my leg? No. Forget it. Too complicated.

Some hope formed in my thoughts as I could see that I had nearly made it all the way to the cash registers. I quickly decided to leave my cart there with my garbage bags un-purchased despite the guilt I felt at leaving product lying around where it doesn't belong. I grabbed my two shirts (one was actually a sweater) and swiftly walked to the wheelchair accessible washroom hoping desperately that it was available. It was. I didn't even feel grateful as I do no reflecting on the situation. I just burst in and locked the door.

No I was glad of the extra time I had before I had to pick up my daughter from school. I carefully peeled off the jeans and underwear stuck to me with the glue of feces, blood and mucus (typical ingredients in the discharge of a person suffering from Severe Ulcerative Colitis) and put the garments in the sink while I sat on the toilet and finished vacating whatever might be left in my bowls.

This is when I discovered that there were, in fact, solid portions to the poop. Very very runny and solid at the same time. Interesting really. The greatest portion of the crap had left my body, but I did have some business to finish up with. A couple of toilet flushes and rounds of toilet paper later, I was able to get up off the toilet. Crap was around the rip and on my legs still. There was also a section of my right sock which was contaminated.

I removed the sock and loaded up a paper towel with soap to start scrubbing the toilet seat. Many paper towels later the toilet seat was, hopefully, available for the next person who I hoped could go about his/her life with less stress surrounding his/her bodily functions than myself.

I stood up naked from the waist down and made my way over to the sink to start rinsing my clothes. This procedure took quite a bit longer than expected because of my repulsion at having to rinse crap from my clothing in a sink with my bare hands and because of the chunks. There was just no getting out of it. If I wanted to pick up my daughter from school without wet, crapped in pants, I was going to have to hurry and wear these garments home.

Chunks kept getting caught in the sink sieve and I couldn't stop the water from turning on to use a paper towel to gather them as it was an automatic sink which kept turning on every time I went to wipe the chunks away, therefore soaking the paper towel and making it very difficult to wipe the chunks off without the paper towel breaking and exposing my bare fingers to the nasty stuff my body got rid of. This procedure took up most of my time in the bathroom.

My jeans were far more wet and cold than I imagined they would get and so was my underwear. I squeezed these items out as best I could wrapping my underwear and right sock in paper towels, then wrapping the paper towels with my contaminated clothing in the middle in one of my extra clean shirts and stuffed the nasty package in my purse.

I yanked the rinsed out crappy jeans on my body with no underwear and wondered what the door auditor might think if she were to actually check my purse.

I wrapped my sweater around my waist once again and after scrubbing my hands psyched myself up to leave the washroom. As I was yanking paper towel I looked at the toilet and floor and noticed slight brown streaks. How annoying! I got more paper towel and soap and began scrubbing, then drying.

When I finally got out of the washroom I bee lined it to the door. I had to walk by my cart with the trash bags in it. I don't know what made me think for a second that I could still buy them, but as soon as I got to the cart I realized there was no way I was going to go through the painful procedure of going through the line and making my purchase considering the state I was in. I kept walking, ignoring my cart and headed through the IN door. The door person tried to discuss something with me, but I didn't even show them my purse, I just kept on walking.

I had bought a brand new 2015 Subaru Outback two months ago. About a month ago I had purchased seat covers made of wet suit material and put them on my car seats. Thank goodness.

I ended up getting home, washing up and picking up my daughter on time. Just thought I would share this experience.

I've heard about this happening and I have always been able to control it until now. 2006 marks the first year I contracted this disease and so I've controlled crapping myself up until now.

Currently, I am in a flare, but I am taking some medication which is obviously not helping enough. It is helping though in at least I can eat.

I am not editing this report. I am writing freehand from my mind, so there are probably a lot of errors. I am too tired to deal with the proper presentation.


Maybe not in their pants when they are an adult... still though.