248. I win again…

 Oh, I am on such a roll - another 25 quid thanks to NS&I (my premium bonds). Two months in a row.

Bowels.

Don’t worry, I’m not going into gory details but there’s so much time to reflect:

1. Capecitabine causes both constipation and diarrhoea. Till now, I didn’t think it was possible to have them simultaneously but actually it is.

2. No one enjoys being constipated. The hospital pharmacy would send me home with boxes of senna tablets- impossible to break up and impossible to swallow so I just suffered in silence. This time, I have discovered Dulcoease. I have yet to use it for fear I will get diarrhoea.

3, Diarrhoea causes nasty cramps which Buscopan can resolve. The pharmacy this time had issued Loperamide on the (wrong) assumption I will get diarrhoea. Take one loperamide (or Imodium, the posh equivalent), and you are instantly constipated.

So I sit between a rock and a hard place. Actually, no, I sit on the loo. Repeatedly, some days,

4. It’s possible to sit in the bathroom for 59 minutes without getting bored. No, I don’t take a book (unlike my father who kept The Observers Book of Weather to peruse in his prolonged sessions) or my phone. It’s thinking time. Mostly thinking about what else I can do to relieve the constipation or diarrhoea, for which I have yet to find the answers.

5. If, on a night like Friday’s, I have crampdiarrhpation, there seems to be a foolproof action that guarantees bowel activity: go to bed. As soon as you feel yourself dozing off, along comes a cramp and a sense of here we go again.

Yes, I have dozed off sitting on the loo.

6. The instruction booklet clearly states that, after a bowel movement, the toilet must be flushed at least twice. Do they think my husband is going to drink from it? Is it radioactive? If it’s so bloody toxic that it has to be forced into the sewage system asap, what’s it doing to my body?7.

7. The instruction book also says if you have more than 4 bowel movements in a day or have diarrhoea at night, you must contact them immediately. To be honest, I don’t want to be admitted after my last experience. I imagine it’s to do with hydration. Since I now have to manually open one or both eyelids when I wake each morning, I can safely say I’m dehydrated but I’ve never been a drinker.  To be honest 4+ bowel movements in a day is cause for self-congratulation  (I’m not going to ask D to celebrate with me) after 5 days of no activity at all (despite the rhubarb). Makes room for cake.

So there you have it. Further dilemmas thanks to capecitabine, my life saver. Small price to pay but definitely a ‘price’.