Some may say it’s defeatist, but I am accepting my thirty-fifth birthday as the middle of my life. If I live to 70, that would be awesome; I also have no interest in getting my head frozen or receiving hormone injections to live forever. Like, that’s probably great for some people, but I barely have anything in my 401K as is, so I don’t know how we’re planning on having a retirement and living to be 120.
When I first sat down to write this birthday post, I originally thought about making it a really thoughtful one about what I’ve learned in 35 years, but I really have nothing. Like, I have learned stuff but I’m probably not a person you should ask about anything. I’m not an entrepreneur, I’m middling at my job, and if you really want to know what I think, you can struggle through either of my books. That’s as concise as I can get (my last book was 700 pages), so I think it’s probably best to keep this entry shorter with less literary allusions.
So, I’ve opted to make this post about intestinal discomfort, because I’ve come to think it’s actually a pretty good metaphor for aging.
We’ll first go back to roughly three weeks ago to the start of “the troubles.” I had gone to brunch with a group of friends and gotten bottomless mimosas. Then 3-4 beers. Then pudding shots. Needless to say, by the time I headed home at 7 pm, I was feeling pretty great. Ernesto got me on my couch, where I drank some water and then promptly fell asleep.
I had to drive out of town the next day to see my buddy from college, and, prior to getting in my car, I felt a little hungover but otherwise pretty great. I proceeded to hop in my car and start the two-hour drive.
About ¾ of the way to Indiana, my stomach did this weird thing where it was just like “NOPE.” I was at a truck stop eating Burger King and it was like everything kind of got reeeaaalllll buzzy. My head hurt, my stomach was killing me, and I started shambling around the convenience mart of the gas station like….
“I have to go to the bathroom…no I don’t… I need to get some Gatorade… Or maybe some coffee… Maybe I’ll just lay in that corner over there and wait for death.”
I ended up with the coffee and then got in the car and took a moment to evaluate my life. Was I sick? Was I just hungover in a weird way that made things all buzzy wuzzy? Should I go back home?
Partially because I was visiting my buddy from college who I rowed with, I just kind of turned on the ignition and thought, “You’re fine. Get over this hangover and stop being a pile of poop.” How many times in college had I been on the verge of death and still gotten up at 6 am and rowed for 2 hours? That was my college experience. That was it. I could easily drive and hang out, without rowing, for 2 hours and be fine.
The rest of the day I powered through everything – I drank some beers, ate some food, played some video games… By about 10 pm when we were playing Nintendo Switch in my buddy’s basement, my stomach hurt so bad, I had to lay at like a 45-degree angle to just… keep it from feeling like it was going to explode.
At 10:30 my friend goes, “You want to just call it? We were going to make you breakfast tomorrow.”
“Oh, sure, if you’re tired.” I said, my stomach feeling as if it was a post-apocalyptic war zone.
I then went upstairs and, for the next 8 hours, contorted myself into any position that allowed me to sleep.
By the time I woke up, my stomach was still some sort of bloated bag of thorns and my friend and his wife were jovially cooking biscuits and gravy. They were joking and bouncing around the kitchen, and I was dreading the moment that they would put these delicious biscuits in front of me, because I really thought a single flake of a biscuit would cause some sort of eruption, from either end of my body.
I managed to eat the biscuits and get int the car and head back to Chicago, where I promptly put on sweatpants and just laid on the couch and hoped that… whatever… was happening would end.
New Year’s Eve was only a day after this, so I pushed through going to my neighbor’s party and drank La Croix all night. At the party, my friend’s brother was in town and was super reassuring. He is a doctor:
“Does your stomach hurt now?”
“No, right now it’s fine.”
“Have you gone to the bathroom today?”
“Yeah, this morning.”
“Oh, good. I don’t think you’re dying.”
HE WAS SERIOUS. The guy was more alarmist than WebMD. On the plus side, he said that stomach bugs can last up to 10 days, so I had a time frame of when I should start stressing.
And 10 days it was. The pain continued for about a week, then got better, then after another night drinking, I again felt like death. I just laid on my bathroom floor and prayed for the end. The next day things escalated, and I literally couldn’t be out of the bathroom for any length of time before I had one incident or another.
I made an appointment and went straight to the doctor the next morning. My story to the doctor was pretty incoherent. Never had I had more respect for medical professionals.
“Yeah, so I drove to Indiana and had Burger King – this was after I drank a lot of champagne – but then I also had biscuits? But the thing was it was better then worse, then I had Indian food after some champagne, and here I am. I think I may be allergic to champagne.”
They took an X-ray of my stomach and the nurse practitioner came into the room.
“So… we took a picture of your stomach. It turns out, your stomach is… very full. This is your intestine.” She drew some sort of weird squiggle around her stomach. “And yours is backed up to here.” She pointed to the extreme end of her stomach squiggle.
“Oh… and what do I do?”
“Well, you’re going to go to CVS, get the medicine I tell you, then you’re… going to go to the bathroom. A lot.”
I don’t think anyone has ever been more excited to take a laxative in their life. AFTER TWO WEEKS OF HATING FOOD AND GETTING CONSTANT DIARRHEA, I GOT TO FLUSH IT OUT AND START FRESH.
I actually had a work meeting in the afternoon, so I knew I had to get the old intestine flushed out ASAP, so I was chugging the magnesium drink on the way back from the store. The nurse had been very correct about what would happen. I actually had to take a work call with intermittent and strategic muting as I worked through The Great Intestinal Refresh of 2020.
I went to work that afternoon, completely convinced that it was over.
“I’m flushed out. I am great success. I will be back at Taco Bell by the end of the week.”
But, this was wrong. I literally had diarrhea for 3 straight days. After it subsided, I just felt like my stomach was full and on the verge of exploding all day. At the office I would force myself to eat Quest Bars (barf.), in hopes of being able to get some kind of sustenance.
This was also the same time as my birthday, so I was just trying to fake enjoy things while secretly hoping that a nice dinner would end with me on the toilet for 2 straight hours. When my actual birthday happened, I was over everything. I, by sheer act of will, forced myself to go to the movies and eat popcorn to use a coupon I had been sent from AMC (the popcorn made me feel sick after).
At 35, I was fully resigned to never enjoying food ever again. I would just die after eating porridge, soup, and some sort of cricket protein gelatin cubes for the rest of my life. On the positive side, everyone was commenting on how good I looked.
“Wow, your face looks so thin.”
“I haven’t eaten in two weeks. I have had diarrhea that long.”
“Well, it’s working!”
But, then, it started to go away. I woke up one morning HUNGRY. Over the past week, I’ve finally started to eat again. I have full meals; I eat meat; I even drank a few beers (no champagne, still scared of that) with no consequence.
The lesson promised at the beginning of this post is now shared here. Thank you for your patience:
Just like my three weeks of diarrhea, aging is a source of discomfort. You may end up on a shag rug on the tile floor of your bathroom contemplating all of your life choices, wondering what has brought you to this point in your life and staring into the great, white existential void that is your porcelain toilet pondering the pain and ambivalence of the universe. But, once you’re over it, it’s actually super fine and you feel the same you always have. Then you go to Taco Bell.
And, as a second bonus lesson: This blog post is a great example of why you don’t ask Tedd for life advice.