Pooped... literally and figuratively

Warning: Poop will be mentioned (frequently) in this post. If you know me, you know that I love to talk about poop and pee regularly anyway, so this is probably no big shocker.

Joel and I are sick. He's got some crazy congestion and I've got a stomach bug. We've been sick since Sunday night. This isn't the first time we've been sick together, but somehow this illness is different that previous instances.

The poop-issues started for me Monday night. At first, Joel and I laughed pretty hysterically about it. At one point, during Monday Night Football, I passed gas (loudly) for an entire play. For the people who don't follow football, that's about 45 seconds. We laughed so hard that it actually made me pass gas again, but this time little bits came out as I was laughing... sort of a toot, toot, toot, toot kind of thing. I know this is too much information for a lot of people, but you have to understand that when I was about 5 weeks pregnant, Joel was at the airport waiting to fly to London. He called me from the bookstore to tell me he was reading a passage in Jenny McCarthy's book on her pregnancy and wanted to know it I truly would have what she coined "swamp gas." At the time, I didn't know what he was talking about. Now we're both aware of how true Jenny's book really was.

What actually happens is, as the baby grows, your growing uterus smooshes (yes, smooshing is a technical term) all of your lovely internal organs up into your chest cavity. Lungs, small and large intestine, etc. are all now hanging out in your upper rib cage. This slows down the digestive process and is why so many women complain of cramps and breathing issues. Similarly, the bladder is shoved downward. Hence the frequent peeing issues.

So anyway, by Tuesday morning, I could tell that something was really wrong. There was no way that I was going to make it to work when I was having problems making it out of the bathroom. I stayed home from work and by noon, Joel was on the couch next to me, box of tissues in hand. I called the doctor to inform her of this "situation." I guess I was expecting some magical cure from her so that I could go back to work. She responded by telling me that in these situations, they would rather let the stomach bug run its course than treat it. Basically, she told me to get comfy, because I was going to be spending a lot more time in the bathroom that week.

By Tuesday night, I was exhausted. Joel could no longer breathe through his nose. By 10pm we were in bed. By 10:02 Joel was sound asleep, thanks to a cocktail of NyQuil and Chloroseptic spray. The dogs were snoring. I was wide awake. And pooping. I tossed and turned until 2am when I finally retreated to our guest bedroom downstairs, figuring that perhaps a bit more space might help the situation. It didn't. Between the baby moving, back pain and frequent trips to the bathroom, I was awake when the sun came up.

Finally today, I'm starting to feel better. Joel is still feeling pretty bad. In a way, I'm thankful to have had the stomach bug portion of the illness because at least it came and went pretty quickly. On the other hand, I've now realized how badly we need to re-do both bathrooms in our house, as I've spent countless hours this week staring at the walls there, analyzing all of the things about them that I don't like. Man, I'm pooped!