Sphincter of Oddi

Sometimes, after a night of particular heavy drinking or heavy eating (like, eating-a-large-margherita-pizza-by-myself kind of heavy), I'll wake up in the middle of the night with a pain in my upper abdomen. I usually have to get up and walk around for a bit, rubbing the spot right below my chest to calm it down. After a few minutes, it goes away and I can go back to sleep. I've been like this since I had my gallbladder removed (a cholecystectomy, if you will). It sucks, but it's manageable. The pain is more of an annoyance than anything else, really.

Friday night, I had a slice of sausage pizza, a couple shots of Fireball and a couple beers. Not too bad, but I woke up at 4AM and immediately thought Shit. This is going to suck. I ran into the kitchen, popped a couple of Tums into my mouth and ate some Ritz crackers. For some reason, Ritz crackers helps alleviate the pain. Maybe it's just having something bland in my stomach?

This time, it didn't help. Holy shit. The pain was intense, you guys. Let me tell you. I had cold sweats. I fell to the floor and curled up into a little ball, rolling back and forth, rubbing my abdomen furiously (I gave myself an Indian Burn from how hard I was rubbing). It was as if one of my internal organs was being squeezed and oozing acid onto my other organs, burning a hole inside my body, but like a sporadic, throbbing, stabbing hole. If that makes sense. I kept rubbing. I drank water. I said four and a half Hail Mary's. Nothing helped.

I thought something was rupturing. My appendix. My liver. My pancreas. All of my organs.

Honestly, it was as bad as the gallbladder attacks I would have back when I still had a gallbladder (which many ladies have compared to the pain of childbirth). I seriously thought I was going to die and I was sad. Not just sad because of my impending demise, but sad because of the circumstances under which I was going to die. I was going to die, alone, on the bathroom floor, naked (I like to sleep naked in the summer).

Thankfully, I didn't die. It only lasted for about a minute, but it was so intense, it felt like ages. After the pain subsided, I splashed water on my face and went back to bed.

When I woke up, I realized that we're not immortal. None of us. At some point, we're all going to die and there's nothing we can do to stop that. Nothing.

Today, I went to the beach. But I was only there for like an hour because it was really sandy and sand kept getting in my eyes and I kept crying, but I tried playing it off, but everyone could totally tell.

When I got back from the beach, I hopped on WebMD and started looking up my symptoms. I've narrowed it down to three possible conditions.

1) Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction
This is funny because it has the word 'sphincter' and 'sphincter' is a funny word.
2) Pancreatitis
THIS is funny because, if you break up the word 'pancreatitis,' it kinda looks like 'pancreas-titties.'
3) Cancer
Cancer is never funny. But, according to WebMD, everything is cancer.

I'm going to see my doctor either this week or the next. I just hope these attacks chill out, because they're not fun and I want to be able to do some heavy drinking and heavy eating at Lolla this weekend.

It's probably Sphincer of Oddi Dysfunction. That's what I've decided.

I chose this picture because the dude's all looking up at the sky like "Is that cloud cumulus or stratus?

Yes, I'm self-diagnosing, but all of my symptoms match up. It only afflicts 4% of the population, but it mostly afflicts people who have had a cholecystectomy. Specifically, Caucasian women between the ages of 35-50 who have had a cholecystectomy. That's totally me, y'all.

I think if I die now, I wouldn't be super upset. I mean, I wouldn't be happy about it, you know? Like, I still want to do shit. I want to have babies. I want to go to Europe. I want to eat a cronut. But I've lived a relatively happy life and I've done a lot of fun things. I'm not particularly accomplished, but I think I'm living a good life.

This Sphincter of Oddi episode had me thinking about the future though. I DON'T want to die now. What would my legacy be? What would I leave behind? This picture of me in a taco suit?

Not a bad legacy. But not great. I'd give that a six out of ten.

I still want to do things. But I'm paralyzed by all of the things I want to.

Here, read this:

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. - Sylvia Plath

My figs are wrinkling. And I need to just grab one fig (or two or three) and eat it. Make it mine.

The problem is which fig to choose.

And I don't even like figs. I prefer dates. Especially bacon-wrapped dates. Stuffed with goat cheese. But I can't eat too many or I get those middle-of-the-night upper abdomen attacks.

Such is life.