After abandoning this thing for essentially 4 or 5 months....where should I start? Luckily, for most of these past few months I've been feeling fine, with an occasional smoke fucking up my scar tissue and making me a paranoid-mess for a few days.
I remember a few months ago, probably like the beginning of May, I smoked a serious fattie. The next day I remember hearing my stomach making some seriously loud gurgles and feeling a shit-ton of pressure because it wouldn't push anything through. After spending a few days tweaking out and thinking I would have to check myself in to the hospital, symptoms slowly subsided and I felt a little bit better. The shitty thing about doing things like that is that the recovery time is so long and usually so boring. Lot's of diarrhea, starving myself, regretting my actions, being mopey.
I haven't smoked since then at all, but something else shitty that just happened recently was that my vaporizer broke and started burning its' contents. I noticed when my stomach got shittier and my smoke alarm went off. So I gave up on that and haven't been able to find the right one. I mean of course there is always one that comes to mind ....
Yes. The highly esteemed volcano vaporizer. Known to end more college-careers than a military draft. It's believed to be the most efficient vaporizer by tenfold. Unfortunately it costs like 550, and if you want a digital one it's fucking 650...and I haven't really been committed enough to the idea to actually buy one...maybe one day soon though. For now I have a batch of killer brownies that will fuck your day up in 3 bites. I plan to have these snacks lasting me well into october...maybe by then i'll feel better about dropping serious bills for one of those guys^.
Okay that's enough of that talk, there are bigger melons we must squash. Here's where my life has been at since I got home from tour (August 9th).
I was out on tour with tbotw for about two and a half weeks. As usual, tour was a fucking blast and great times were had yadda yadda. But I did have some hesitations about how my gut would hold up with the 2 and a half weeks living out of a van and mostly eating fast food. I was smart enough to watch what I eat for most of tour, I'd say about 35 percent of my diet consisted of bananas. Most gas stations will sell you a good banana for under a buck, and for a guy who is accustomed to bouts of black acid shit-water, bananas are a great way to slow down your digestion process and help make your stool more solid.
I'd say for the first 12 days of tour my stomach was in good condition, towards the last few days my shit starting to come out a little more narrowed which lets me know that there is some swelling going on. I was still going to the bathroom though, and just figured I could watch what I eat and be fine. Another thing I was doing was drinking a bunch of water every day, like a lot. That's obvious good advice for any person with Crohn's since it keeps shit moving. It still weirds me out how if sometimes I chug water I can count to 10 and I will already feel pressure and start passing gas. It's like one of those weird lightening/thunder cause and effect things. Science.
So despite the narrowing of my intestines, I was still feeling fine. Until the last day when I woke up in the middle of our drive home with an awful fever, throbbing headache, and some extreme nausea. The shitty part about this was that we were still about, 8 hours away from New Jersey. I'm still not sure if I caught an infection or if the fever was crohn's induced, or just a combination of the two. I do know that from all the wear and tear of driving around, I was fucking tired and therefore probably more susceptible to getting sick. Also, that same day I wolfed down two tuna rolls out of a supermarket kitchen, drowning them in a pool soy sauce and wasabi. That was probably one of my worse ideas I've had in a while. Live and learn, that was the day I swore off sushi for good. I'll stick with white rice and egg drop soup for now, even though I'm sure the white rice in mass amounts isn't great either.
This fever I had lasted about 4 weeks, but only really in my bowels. The headache's and nausea went away after a couple of days of rest at home, but I still had diarrhea for pretty much the rest of August. The weird part was if I sipped a lot of water I would have to go urgently, but only black diarrhea water, as if all of my waste was getting squeezed through a tight tunnel.
Whatever was happening to me, I was afraid and miserable. I didn't really talk to anyone for a few days, and just watched some Spongebob and iCarly to pass the time. I was trying to give my body all the rest it could use to help recover, but wasn't finding any luck. Eventually my apathy turned into anxiety and I really wanted to get better. I shoot my GI doctor an email and he asks that we go through with a cat scan. I was worried that my stomach would look like a mess on a Cat Scan test, but I agree and spend the next week breaking a sweat over this test.
I knew at times what I had going on was bad because for a while I would frequently burp up ANYTHING I swallowed. Whether it was tea burps or jello burps, whatever I was putting down was having a hard time getting broken up and through my intestines. I consult my regular doctor about it and he writes me a prescription for some antibiotics I already had lying around... and already considered taking to help fight off infection. As a last ditch effort to get better in some quick-fix scheme, I tried to fast on go on an all juice diet...Or come as close to one as I could. I did cheat both days and ate a piece of fruit and some jello, but I was trying to just give my bowels a break and have any swelling go down. A combination of this and some homeopathic stuff (arnica montana, and some graphites to help scar tissue), actually did help, but I couldn't tell because most of the days before my cat scan I wasn't eating much at all.
I've had a few Catscans before so they're pretty much a cakewalk, I mean look how quick I downed this bottle of Barium. I had to do that shit twice, nbd.
Taking the cat scan wasn't bad, they pump you with iodine and give you some radiation. The fun part about iodine is that it makes your grundle tickle, I'm not even joking.
After I take my test I call to schedule a doctor appointment with my regular doctor because I wanted him to check out this problem I noticed in the bath. Part of me thought I was just turning into a hypochondriac, but another part of me thought something was up with my right nut. I wasn't sure if I had a tumor or just one of these conditions I read about called a hydrocele, where the tissue on you actual nut bubbles up and fills with fluid. I figured visiting my doctor would be a good way to see what's going on with my stomach and get the scoop on my sack.
The next day I went to my doctor to check it out and hehad great news, my stomach looked fine on the Catscan. Even I knew that I hadn't been feeling 100 percent recently, this was a relief to me still. My doctor also told me that I do indeed have a hydrocele, possibly as a post surgery complication with the way my body healed or some shit. I think it's related to a hernia that I have but that no one seems to acknowledge or admit exists. Only time will tell mwaha.
Anyway, my doctor looks at me and is like "It's such a quick fix, with what you've been through it'll be a walk in the park". Thinking he was referring to some meds to knock out whatever fluid is building up in my testicle, I wait for him to write me up a prescription. Instead he tells me "I'm gonna bring you to this guy, he's great", and he hands me a phone number of another doctor.
Then he tags on : "Recovery time is quick, you'll be out of there in a few days".
"What? No...You mean....Ughhh fu-......shit."
That's right, surgery. On my fucking testicle.
This of course implies, cutting open my scrotum with a knife...then stitching it back up after like some Frankenstein nutsack.
I think this is honestly every man's nightmare besides for the few fucked up people you see on the internet. What I don't get is how the guy who spent his whole adolescent years emptying out his testes now faces this problem.
If you wanna see the glorious procedure click here. (If you ARE getting this procedure done I really wouldn't watch this, I definitely regret it). Now of course my scrotum isn't as big as that guys, some people just wait longer to get the procedure done. Some people live with hydroceles and tolerate them until they are fucking humongous. I kinda more of a guy that would prefer not to have his one nut 4 times bigger than the other one. Luckily we got to capture a picture of my balls:
Not to scale completely, but it's getting there! The shitty thing is that I called to schedule with the recommended urologist and he wasn't free until early october, so I scheduled with his associate, but his earliest date was 9/16. That means I have 9 more days AT LEAST, probably more like 12 since I'm only going for a consultation on the 16th. He needs to be like "yes, that nut is fucking way too big" before he can actually cut me open I guess. I may try and find another doctor off the internet and try and schedule this surgery sooner. I got places to be in october, my sister is getting married and shit, so the sooner we start this ballbloodbath the better.
I'm not as nervous for this procedure as I am aroused...I mean, the thought of having someone's hands inside my insides makes me feel like a excited 14 year old girl. Just kidding, I'm not really looking forward to getting my nut cut open, but I'm looking forward to not having to deal with this situation anymore. Luckily I'm in no pain, just a little discomfort, and a whole lot of getting creeped out. I feel like I'm carrying a dinosaur egg in my sack. Any moment it may just hatch.
Last night I showed my friends, the initial reaction was mostly in the vein of "holy shit". By now my right is probably 4 times bigger than my left, if not a little more. For the past few days, if you catch me from the right angle, I'd have a bulge in my pants. I had to give the heads up the my buddies a few time "yo...you see that bulge? yeah...that's not my dick."
I'll write updates as they happen...as for now I'm stuck with this mutant testicle, but I guess it beats having shitty Crohn's symptoms.
