Death of a foodie.

When we first moved here to Pittsford one of the major draws was the local grocery store. It being the flagship store of the chain it is a veritable Taj Mahal, a palace of food. The blue cheese bin was bigger than the entire cheese selection at our local Schnuck's in Missouri. I was in heaven. It actually hasn't turned out to be the culinary mecca that I had dreamed of but it's not bad. For several years now I have tortured my family with the evening meal way too late because I can only seem to make elaborate dishes. I have stacks of cooking magazines next to my bed which I read cover to cover, even (and especially) the weird ads in the back. We got cable so that when I was laid up after my first surgery I could watch the Food Network and public television cooking shows. Those days are over. Le Foodie est mort.

Don't get me wrong. I still love food. I just can't eat it. The two rounds of pelvic radiation I've had have destroyed my gut. In addition to the really special bloody mucous I discharge a couple of times a day from the little bit of rectum I still have (why do they leave it there to do that? why not just seal the passage and put up a No Trespassing sign?) I have an ultra-sensitive digestive track. It's called radiation colitis (in my butt) and enteritis (everywhere else). A spinach walnut wrap I ate for lunch yesterday made it through in four hours. Collard greens whizzed through apparently completely unaffected by the digestive process. The speed with which vegetable matter is propelled through the tubing is also accompanied by large volumes of gas. Enough that if a weather balloon was attached to my stoma instead of the decorative, putty colored bag I'd have hit the jet stream by now and be somewhere over Greenland.

Well so what, right? Just a few more trips to the bathroom during the day. The bloating is horrible and diarrhea is still diarrhea even if it flows unimpeded into a bag at one's waist. It hurts. My gut doesn't suffer in silence either. Several times this week I was in an exam room with a patient when the stoma erupted with the most embarassing squelches. I slap my hand over my abdomen to quell it but as soon as I remove it the squelch finishes what it started. Like I said before, it's got to go somewhere.

You'd think I'd be losing weight with this since in addition I can't eat the volume I used to; I fill up quick. No, I manage to find the calories somewhere. there's no justice. If I have to have chronic cancer, why can't I at least look fashionably gaunt?