How Losing My Large Intestine Changed My Life

I have no large intestine. A statement that garners attention. I like attention. That statement didn't necessarily always elicit the type of attention I desired though. My modest Catholic upbringing made bodily functions difficult for me to talk about.

My large intestine burst on July 19, 1999. I rode in a cab to Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plains on July 16^th, 1999. I had moved to Jamaica Plains on May 5^th, 1999. I didn't know many people in town. I asked the cab driver to take me to the nearest hospital. Something they say in the movies. He said, "E.R.?" I said, "Yes," and wondered how he knew.

I couldn't stop going to the bathroom. My abdomen was distended. I was in pain. A knife in the stomach kind of pain. What I saw in the toilet looked like pink mucus. As I pressed my feverish head on the cool toilet seat, tired and unable to eat, I imagined wispy, pink jellyfish swirling down the drain.

I had an undiagnosed case of ulcerative colitis. I had no health insurance. I was 26 and still thought I was immortal. I thought my stomach problems would go away. I was living in Boston after getting out of a dangerous relationship in New York City and thought stress or bad living had taken there toll, but I would get better, right? Little did I know that my large intestine was literally becoming mush as I put off my visit to the hospital.

The doctors didn't know what was wrong with me for the first days. They ran tests. Asked me confusing questions. Confusing because I didn't know why they cared if I ate anything in the past hours, or if I was pregnant. Confusing because I didn't know how one answered questions that boiled down to, "We are going to put a camera up your ass, okay?" "Umm, well. Okay." Confusing because my body was slowly becoming toxic. Toxic Mega-Colon the doctors called it. That sounded remote, implausible, like an imaginary comic book superhero. Unfortunately, it was real.