Bellyaches and House Guests

Most everyone who knows us, knows that we have had a rough few weeks. My husband was in the hospital and had to have major, life-changing surgery. Understandably, things have been very tense and we’ve had many of our friends and family very worried about us. Today, his best friend brought his wife and kids for a visit. Brian (my hubby) wanted to go eat and so we all went to the Mexican restaurant. We had a nice time; I even enjoyed a margarita and actually felt myself relax for the first time in about two weeks. Life was good. And then we went home.

Let me preface this by saying that in my house, we have two downstairs bathrooms but one toilet is on the fritz and we’re waiting to get it repaired. So that leaves one, very public bathroom that joins our living room. Under most circumstances, this poses no problem. There is adequate ventilation, a fan, and I stock it with plentiful air fresheners for guests who get “the movement.” I want people to feel comfortable with their bathroom experiences, and so I also stock the softest toilet paper around. Apparently, this also has a negative side effect of people using more of it than necessary.

After we were home, we sat around and chatted for a while, then it hit me. The pain that unmistakably presents itself in my belly and lets me know that I enjoyed way too many tortilla chips. Given that we had house guests, I didn’t want to scare them away with my bowel talents, so I tried to distract myself. What will do that? I’ll wash the dog, (These are good friends. They can deal with me washing the dog.) Everything was fine for a little while, except that I have the world’s squirmiest toy poodle who hates baths. She wiggled, I wiggled. My belly wiggled, and I winced in pain. Oh, this can’t be good. I hope that I didn’t eat bad salsa. I pressed on, wanting to shield my house guests from the war waging within my abdomen. But, then it happened. My stomach was giving me the emergency alerts and I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. This was foreboding, and I knew something bad was about to happen.

I don’t really remember what happened next, other than drying to dog off and sending her on her way. Her little brown eyes looked up at me, and instinctively I think she knew that I was not feeling good. I didn’t even look at anyone when I went rushing to the bathroom. Something akin to Montezuma’s revenge hit me, but within moments, I felt fine. The world was at peace, the sun was shining, life was good. Until I tried to flush. And flush. The bowl swirled, almost mocking me—“You didn’t want to be embarrassed, we’ll show you EMBARRASSED!”  I half-laughed, a little nervously. This won’t cause panic, I have the handy dandy plunger nearby and I can fix this. The loud bathroom fan will mask the noise of the plunger and all will be well. But it wasn’t. I plunged and plunged, until water splashed out on my sock. I knew that I was doomed. My secret poop would be a secret no more. And worst of all, the other bathroom toilet was out of commission. What would we do for Brian and his new ostomy pouch? We were just learning how to adjust to this new way of life and I’ve ruined it. He would just have to empty it outside. Yep, that’s it! Outside! As the thoughts raced through my mind, I did the only thing I could do. I went to enlist the help of my teenage son. My teenage son who hates all things gross, even though he claims to love science.

My guest bathroom is connected to my master bathroom through a pocket door. It’s almost like one giant bathroom, with two toilets. Hard to imagine, but it makes sense when you see it. With the bathroom door locked, I slipped through the pocket door and went through my master bedroom. I asked my son to step in there with me, and bring my phone. (Like who was I going to call while plunging the toilet?) He comes, albeit a little unwillingly, and follows me to the toilet of doom. I try to whisper to him what is going on, and he starts to laugh and shake his head. “No way, mom! I’m not doing that!” It was the classical teenage response to anything unpleasant they’re asked to do. His squeaky teenager voice got louder and louder. I gripped his arm and gritted my teeth, “I’m serious, you’re going to help me and you’re going to help me quietly. I don’t want them to know what’s going on in here.” And as I say all of this, I am thinking that this whole scenario must seem pretty bizarre from the people sitting in my living room. It also hits me that after ten or so minutes in the bathroom, they know what’s going on.

My forceful coaxing convinces Bradley to help me plunge the toilet. And plunge the toilet. As he’s plunging, he has to ask, “What did you eat mom? This looks like where Satan comes from!” Thanks, son. After the horrible bellyache I had, I would believe that. But back to the task at hand. He continues to plunge and there is no sign of plumbing perfection. So he starts to laugh and I can’t quite remember what was said or done to start it all, but I start to laugh as well. It was to the point where you have to laugh to keep from crying. Brian was in no shape to fix the toilet. I didn’t have a clue what we would do. I would have to build an outhouse between 3pm and sundown. Which seemed totally logical to me at the time. My son gave it his all, but the toilet wasn’t showing any amount of mercy. I had given up all hopes of coming out of there with my head held high.

We walked back through my bedroom, leaving the bathroom door locked. “Not a word, Bradley. Not one word about what is going on in this bathroom.” He laughed, “Sure mom, but it’s pretty funny. But where will they go to the bathroom?” Honestly, I didn’t care as long as they didn’t ask to use the one most logical for them to use. As I opened my bedroom door into the living room, I see our house guests leaving. “Oh, guys! Are y’all leaving so soon?” They wouldn’t even look me in the eye. His wife was ushering their six year old out to the car, like she was trying to avoid the plague. Sweetly, they said they had to get home before dark and I was able to save a little face. Or so I thought. My youngest son, who is eight, said, “Yeah mom, they had to leave because they said you were throwing up.” The poor things. I can only imagine being in their shoes. They came to see my sick hubby, and I run off to wash the dog, then end up leaving them in the living room with Brian—who fell asleep. I can only imagine what they were thinking when they left but I suspect that it will be quite some time before they come back.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve had to come to terms with poo. Brian had a serious infection that caused a perforation in his bowel. He had a temporary colostomy done, which he’ll live with for the next six months or so. All this time, I’ve worried that we would experience an embarrassing event with his pouch leaking or some of the noises that come from it. I had decided that whatever happened, we could handle it. But today, I couldn’t even handle a little toilet malfunction. I was too embarrassed to go out and ask for help. Why is something so completely natural so excruciatingly embarrassing? Perhaps, because as Bradley put it, it reminds us of “where Satan comes from.” It’s not pleasant. It’s not a rose. It stinks. But without it, our bodies can truly be poisoned, as in Brian’s case.

What better way to step forward in this journey? To find humor in this situation. Even if it did scare off Brian’s friend and his family. So how did this story end? Well, after I sat down in the living room and admitted my defeat to Brian, he went in there and just flushed it. That’s it. No plunging. No swearing. Just a simple little flush. He saved the day, even as sick as he still is. And we can all live to poo another day, inside with the comforts of indoor plumbing.