Constipation

Unfortunately it wasn’t just steroid mania that affected me. The chemo drugs were making me horrendously constipated. I tried metamucil, over the counter laxatives; I even resorted to eating hot kung pao noodles. It was a weekly effort to try and shift the bowling ball that built up in my intestines. At the end of a particularly uncomfortable week, desperate for some relief, I drove to a local chemist on a Sunday morning. I paced outside until 9am when the doors slid open. A chemist pounced to my side.

      “I need something for constipation.” I said quickly.

      “How long have you been having it?” She said in a professional tone.

      “Five days.”

The chemist’s eyes widened dramatically and her chin dropped involuntarily. I thought she needed an explanation.

      “I’m on chemo.”

      “You look really well.”

She sounded surprised that a person on chemo could be standing before her.

      “I feel well.” I offered in explanation at my ability to be vertical and breathing.

      “Are you on morphine?”

I mustn’t have looked that well for her to think I was end stage.

      “No.”

      “You need this.” She pointed to a box and smiled.

      Carrying from the store an enema that looked like it was going to be difficult and messy, I was sure I had become the talking point of the morning staff at the chemists. At home I squirted the enema where it was supposed to go. When I finally got some relief it felt like a beach ball had forced its way through a small funnel. I would rather give birth then go through the painful process again. I expected to see blood after feeling like I had been ripped apart, but to my surprise there was nothing.

      On the outside, necessity gave me a hard shell when it came to asking for an enema, but the psychological effect of constipation went much deeper. When I was about 17 years old my grandmother became unwell. She was extremely constipated and nothing seemed to help. She went to a proctologist who prescribed more drugs that didn’t work. She was in excruciating pain so she went into the hospital for tests. She died there. A post-mortem showed she had bowel cancer. I wondered if my symptoms meant I might have the same thing. It was possible my whole body was racked with cancer.