Approximately three plus days elapsed...

without yours truly experiencing urge to defecate

 

Neither bloating nor constipation

arose, but one nondescript anguished

logophile anticipated intestinal blockage,

hence prophesying worse case scenario

 

I (predicated in direction for an adult)

ingested three Dulcolax tablets

and subsequently this joker

found himself riddled
with debilitating diarrhea dilemma

that afflicted me hours on end
today April 11th, 2022.

 

Severe anal travails

immediately brought forth

rectal recollections regarding

my offal bout with shigella

circa approximately July fourth holiday

nineteen hundred and eighty seven

which ranked as worst pain in the arse.

 

Two women (Ziona and Susan –

surnames unknown),

plus your truly, which trio

befriended each other

from Thursday night contra dance.

 

Aforementioned women

minimally identified

via first name basis

(since their sir nom de plume

unknown at this juncture),

and yours truly linkedin,

via above said social venue.

 

This piece of information mentioned

since that innocuous site

(Summit Presbyterian Church

at Green and Westview Streets

within Mount Airy, Pennsylvania)

essentially served as

figurative starting point

per following true anecdote.

 

Though about thirty five years ago,

my memory easily jogged,

asper unforeseen brush with death.

 

Innocence and naïveté twin factors,

tangentially contributed to agonizing ordeal.

 

Ask me what I ate for breakfast

this morning, and ye will receive

a blank stare!

 

Turn back the hands of time,

well nigh eighty percent

since existence sans mein kampf.

 

Every summer informal conclave

regarding congregation of hippies
(most of whom found me
looking conservative – fully attired)
decide upon a locale communicated
thru the grapevine.

 

The Rainbow Family Gathering
(vast majority opting to shuck clothes)

that summer held in Cheoah National Forest

just outside Robbinsville

western North Carolina,

and the farthest south

clandestine group congregated.

 

Among the estimated 12, 700 attendees

(one of whom included yours truly),

more than fifty percent

of the sprawling masses

contracted the near fatal

outbreak of shigellosis.

 

Sanitation in the expansive campsite

ranked as poor to non-existent.

 

This absence of proper hygiene

provided opportunities

thru contaminated food,

water and person

to person contact.

 

Widespread transmission

of the very opportunistic disease

caused by Shigella sonnei,

resistant to ampicillin,

tetracycline, and trimethoprim

sulfamethoxazole;

the rapacious organism

categorized as colicin type 9,

and contained a 90-kilobase plasmid,

not found in non-contagious related strains.

 

Misery loves company,

and this epidemic plagued

the infected with unrelenting diarrhea

and general lower

gastrointestinal debilitation.

 

Unsure how this then

late twenty something singular male

managed to weather

the microbial onslaught,

which rendered me prone

to a doubled over spate

of being lobbed and hamstrung

hammering the lower gastrointestinal tract,

and incessant severe loss of nutriment

vis a vis thru rectal a steady state

quintessentially unable to nourish

an already slim body.

 

Upon relieving chronic purging

from the sphincter muscle,

the sensation to expel

countless times thereafter

explained (not recommended diet)

the rapid loss of weight.

 

Whence returning home

at that time 724 Level Road,

Collegeville, Pennsylvania, 19426,

this ghostly appearance of mine

immediately alarmed, discerned,

and gauged family members

to schedule me for

immediate medical intervention.

 

After being examined,

(what little flesh remained

of what resembled

a Holocaust Concentration camp victim),

the physician could offer

no pharmacological remedy.

 

As the days of my life passed

under bedside and medical watch

of mother, who worked

as a licensed practical nurse,

yet could do little or nothing

to halt her own demise courtesy

metastatic carcinoma viz

ovarian/uterine cancer

approximately seventeen years ago

early May 2020.