All I want for Christmas is to Fart Without Fear.

Well my gastro saga continues. I'm sure my mother is proud that I've been keeping the world updated on my recalcitrant bowel, since August. I wonder if she'll add it into her Christmas letter this year? Tucked away between the updates on her roses and their trip to Apollo Bay. Mind you, you'd think she'd be used to my policy of too much information is never enough. Hell, I take every opportunity to bring up the cousin loving a few generations back, and set out nicely on the family tree, that I blame for the genetic nightmare that is my body. My people are genetically lazy, folks. Apparently it was just too much effort to saddle up the mule, pat the dust off your best burlap shirt, select your best courting turnip, and make your way over to the next, not-genetically related, village.  I can hear the banjos from here.

As I mentioned briefly in the last post my dalliance with H1 and H2 antihistamines was short lived. My gastric system, mounted a very successful campaign, and wore them down until they finally waved the white flag. So now I am back to ops normal. Might as well just put a pillow on the tiles and screw a TV to the bathroom wall. It's not like I'm leaving any time soon. Oh Universe, why must you give with one hand and take with the other.

My green credentials are going down the toilet, literally and figuratively. So sorry rainforests of the world, but my consumption of paper products is back to excessive. And my water consumptive ideal of "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down" has gone out the consistently umber window.

When last I saw my cardio her only advice to deal with my near-syncope each time I go to the loo (oh yeah I'm living the dream) was to be careful. Yep, that'll do it. Maybe I can put crash mats all around my loo? Or grab out all the bubble wrap Mr Grumpy hoards, and bubble wrap my entire bathroom. At least I can pass all the time I spend in their working out new and creative ways to pop the bubbles.

My trip to Gastro Guy, Wednesday was equally underwhelming. Yet again I was faced with "Oh Shit!" face when describing my symptoms. Looks like the reflex that controls this pesky issue is broken. Even better there is nothing available in modern medicine that can fix that little problem. YAY. Let me party on down with that exciting morsel of information. There may, potentially, be a drug that may help, but is only available in clinical trials here in Australia. Access outside the trial requires a combination of correct planetary alignment, prayer to every deity known to man, and payment by lottery win, kidney and/or first born. He did end our consultation with "I'm going to have to Google this", which has left me so full of confidence.

Oh, and I forgot, I get to take horse tablets for a few weeks to kill off any errant bacteria after he decided that there was something he didn't agree with on my Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) test. Doesn't that sound lovely. I keep having images of colonies of bacteria setting up some sort of feudal society in my bowel. Can't quite recall what it was, as this was after the "you will be stuck peeing out your butt for the rest of your natural life" revelation. Kinda hard to concentrate after that. All I could think was the least he could have done is given me the news with a barber shop quartet, in the highly-inappropriate, Family Guy style.

So back to basically homebound now. But what can you do? Someone asked me "how do you keep bouncing back from all the bad news?" Well, there isn't really a choice. I can sit and weep into my cornflakes (which I have done, but it just made my cornflakes taste like saddness, and a little salty). Or, I can suck it up and move on. I can't change it, so I might as well amuse myself with inappropriate jokes about my family tree and messed up digestive system. Besides bathroom humour is funny no matter what your age.

Now if only Santa can grant my one Christmas wish, and let me fart without fear. It's not too much to ask is it? Sheesh, jolly fat man. I've plied you with biscuits and milk for years, and even left out carrots for Rudolf and his hairy brethren, time to pony up.

Cheers
Michelle :)

Given my current health predicament I do think it only fair that Jensen Ackles stop buy and give me a foot rub, or feed me chocolate, or...... I think I need to start a Twitter Campaign.

I leave you with an annoying, yet appropriate song.

Don't forget to enter the draw (click here) for a copy of Animal Planet, the new novel by Charlotte Wood. 

Entries close TONIGHT!! midnight, 25th November 2011.