Day 1

Update:

Well, I’m officially carrying a 300g 'passenger', along with 500ml saline. 300g – that’s massive, isn’t it? On the drive home, Ryan and I estimated it to be 3-4 Mars Bars.

I really didn’t think it would be that much – of the 16 case studies I have access to, most refer to 5-30g – only one refers to 300g.

Oh well, the more good bacteria, the merrier!

OK, let’s start at the beginning:

I had a pretty rough evening last night, with some vomiting and lethargy. When I got up at 5:10am today, the lethargy had gotten worse (I had to sit on the floor of the shower, and washing my hair was a huge effort), I had nausea and felt dehydrated – probably a result of vomiting up the prescribed levels of water I had to drink the previous day.

When I rocked up at the Centre’s hospital wing, I had the opportunity to ask any further questions, then it was time to strip off, and start modeling one of those gowns with ties at the back.

A blood pressure test, oxygen mask and cannula later, I was ready for action. I dozed for a bit, then woke up feeling cold and wishing they’d hurry up with it…only to be told that the deed had been done! (I don’t know why, but colonoscopies are like that – I’ve always woken up unsure if they’ve been performed yet.)

I was a bit wobbly, so the nurse gave me some water, more Immodium, one of those airline packets of bikkies, and a cheese and cracker pack. Those foods obviously aren’t allowed on my diet, but I ate them anyway – I was too dazed to do anything else.

Next, the nurse told me by appointment for tomorrow was at 9:15, called Ryan to come and collect me, and left me to it.

I paid for the first week’s treatment ($500 hospital excess fee, $460 donor bank contributions – that’s $92 a pop!, and $1420 for the colonoscopy and the 4 remaining enemas).

Then I turned around to see my lovely Ryan arriving, with a bouquet of native flowers, a newspaper and a magazine for me - God love him!!

I’m home now, and still a bit wobbly, but feeling better all of the time.

I do feel a bit like my insides are ‘full’, but I suspect that’s just psychological.

No regrets and no icky feelings – my commitment to the treatment was reinforced by a brochure in the Centre’s waiting room, showing ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots of a colon, from a patient suffering Ulcerative Colitis.

My main concern at present is my diet.

Now that I’ve had good bacteria introduced into my system, I need to encourage the lil critters to go forth and multiply, and giving them sustenance through a high fibre diet is the way to do that.

I’m really scared though – tearfully scared – that by deviating from my diet of five years, all I’ll do is open the flood gates for my symptoms to return with their original intensity. It almost feels like self-harm to go onto the high fibre diet the Centre is recommending, even though I understand the reasoning behind it.

Originally, I was only planning to take the first week of the treatment period off work, but when I found out that my diet has to change, I tentatively booked next week off too.

The worst part about this all is that if the new diet screws me up, I can’t revert to my old diet, as doing so could jeopardise the success of the poo transplant treatment, which can take more than 6 months to reach its maximum potential. I feel like I’ve basically just signed up for a gale-force return of physical symptoms, topped with an emotional tsunami and so much anger I can’t even find a metaphor for it. But…what other option is there?

Anally retentive thoughts – Why the Bog Blog?

I haven’t yet covered why I’m documenting this ‘journey’ (as they say in reality TV world). There are a few reasons:

for the interest of Irritable Bowel Sufferers everywhere, who, like me and St33lFury, have spent hours trawling the net for information on treatment

for the IBS sufferers that I know, who are keeping their fingers crossed for me

for the friends who have been hearing all about poo transplants for the last 18 months – proof I’m going to ‘put up, or shut up’!

for my friend Ayse, whose ‘n00b soul’ I have been lucky enough to know for the last 10 years. She’s in Turkey at the moment, and so disappointed not to be around (or so she claims, she might end up appreciating the distance if I go feral!)

in the hope that someone from the medical industry will come across this, and perhaps be less dismissive of IBS patients as a result

The main reason, though, if I’m honest, is that I’m doing it for me. It frustrates the hell out of me that I haven’t been able to do anything constructive with this whole stomach situation, to give it context in my life.

So here’s trying!

Note: Yesterday I wrote a lil stockpile of these ‘thoughts’, which I’ll raid each day – the above is one of them. The reason for this is that I’m worried that now I’m on a high fibre diet, the mental fogginess will descend, and all you’ll get from me will be dribble.