Bowel Function

What is it about bowel function that is so fascinating , I assume it is because it is essential to a normal functioning life. I was unfortunate enough to contract a particularly nasty bowel infection in Turkmenistan whilst working there. I was rushed to hospital, if that is what you can call it, I was inserted to the head of the queue as I was a paying guest, and seen by a stream of people who really wanted to help me but didn’t. The doctor who examined me had the most ridiculous hat on I have ever seen, it was at least 16 inches tall and straight up like a chef’s without the poofed out thing on top, and he had me in a tiny room that was just unbelievable. The walls were flaking, the bed was a rusted iron frame affair and the sheets looked stained and the room was overlooked from the path outside so I would be getting inquiring looks from passers by. I was told to strip by a nurse who could have been the Olympic gold shot-putter from 1966 and she strung up on a nasty rusted stand, a cut-off coke bottle with a tube on it and then attempted to give me an enema, so brutal and unsuccessful was she that in the end I took the tube away from her and inserted it myself , she filled the bottle with water from a jug and left me to it for about 20 minutes, it was my first enema ever and hopefully the last, I took about 2 pints before I had to evacuate myself in a toilet attached to the room that a bar on the outskirts of Manila would have been ashamed of. It was stinking and unclean the toilet wasn’t clean and had no seat and the cistern was also broken so I had to flush using a jug from the tap, this was while I was feeling like death anyway after having projectile diarrhoea for 24 hours. I climbed back on the bed feeling that death would be a blessing and awaited the doctor. He arrived to string up a drip, at this point I was scared and watched carefully as they brought out some sterile needles and saline solution. They stuck me with a drip and let it flow into me and then he injected something into the solution that made me feel like I was going to have a seizure. I went all cold and clammy and felt sick, he was smiling and basically trying to reassure me that I would not die with this drug, I was hoping that I would get better instantly but I felt like crap after the 1 hour it took to get the saline into me. They ushered me to get dressed and I then had to pay $20 for the service, a lot of money to them and then I left thinking that would be the end of my woes. Unfortunately I never got better from the attacks that would come every morning usually at the work site. Several bouts of excruciating projectile diarrhoea until my bowels were empty, this went on for 6 weeks, I wasn’t the only one who was feeling bad, and I think everyone on site had bad guts apart from Pete who was bullet proof and a good guy as well. I lost 16 pounds in weight in 6 weeks and when I finally got home I was diagnosed with Giardia Llamblia. This is a protozoan that usually infect sheep and cattle and as we saw the state of the local meat market in Turkmenistan it isn’t surprising that we caught something. The animals were slaughtered in the market and meat was chopped up on a tree stump that was black and rotten with years of uncleaned blood and god knows what else on it, it was a surprise that everyone in town hadn’t died from salmonella. My treatment for the infection was a particularly strong antibiotic that is the only treatment. The main part of this repulsive story is that my bowel function has never returned to normal since then. I cannot eat salad in abundance with an oily dressing as it works like a laxative on me, straight through at the speed of a steam train and it feels very bad on my twisted guts. I cannot eat milky things as again it has the laxative effect. I have been reading lately that around 10% have a permanent lactose intolerance from the initial attack and they have no idea if it is for life. They claim that it doesn’t need to be treated as your body develops a defence to it and I can say that mine didn’t and I think if I had carried on like that I would have withered to nothing inside of 6 months. So life now in a morning is dominated by a desire to have a normal crap, I can be disappointed mostly but somedays I feel great. What would it be like to be normal again. I cannot decide what form this will take, long term or perhaps I am permanently damaged to be disappointed every morning.