… and then my body

Bodily functions aren’t something we think about, analyze and contemplate all that much on a day to day basis. Until you’re in a developing country. Then you think about them too much, and your body begins to betray you in ways you never though possible, and impress you in ways you never appreciated.

It’s funny how most topics relating to sex or digestion are off limits. We come up with hundreds of euphemisms to disguise and soften what would otherwise be considered abrupt and uncouth. We carefully avoid talking about unseemly illnesses or “problems.” When we are forced to voice the taboo we lower our voice and clear our throats, “oh, ya know, uh I just have a case of the runs.” Then we shirk it off and take some Immodium. But when you find yourself in the hole that is the bathroom of the 22 hour train across India, squatting over the breezy abyss that falls directly into the tracks, holding on for dear life, while hoping your footing isn’t compromised by that dal dish you just threw up, wondering why the three anti-diarrheals you took today aren’t mitigating the war zone that is your intestines, you no longer just have the runs.

While in India my sinuses were infiltrated by a nasty bacteria that turned my head into a painfully pressurized balloon; I contracted the exotic sounding, mosquito borne, Chikengunya virus, which gave me the joints of a 70 year old; and, as I would later discover, I carried Giardia around with me for over a month.

It’s a strange struggle between fragility and resiliency. On one hand our bodies are capable of overcoming so much – they can adapt to all sorts of strange microbes and fight of the bombardment of pathogens that we subject them to daily. Eventually I could eat the dodgiest of street foods without any symptoms. And every painful episode I weathered made my coping mechanisms more finely honed – I could combat nausea at every turn, and I could do it with indefatigable enthusiasm.

Yet at the same time you have to wonder what might have happened without modern medicine. Before I got the antibiotics for my sinus infection my teeth felt like they were about to throw in the towel and just pop out of my jaw from the pressure. How many people die from dehydration when they get Giardia? In that light, our discomfort with discussing bodily functions seems rather petty. Certainly, by the end of the trip I was having discussions about the regularity of my excrement in more detail than I ever though possible. We may actually have been a bit too open with these issues, now that I think about it.

Even when I got back home I couldn’t escape the topic. My intestines had betrayed me. Back in the clean US of A I was still having GI issues. My tolerance for nausea actually prevented me from recognizing there was a problem for a long time. Or maybe it was my suspicion of what the doctor would ask me to do when I told her I was having stomach issues. After all my close encounters with bodily fluids in India, I still wasn’t prepared for this. See, when you have stomach problems the doctor needs to run tests to see what you have. Where do they get the specimens for these tests? Well, your stool of course. When I signed up to go to Asia no one ever told me I would have to shit in a bowl when I got back.

So yes. Me and my stool had a date. For something that comes out of me, I have actually had a very informal relationship with my stool. I would have rather it stayed that way. But you gotta do what you gotta do, and I needed to know what was living in my intestines. So, intrepid explorer that I am, I went forth and got the job done. And, lo and behold, it turns out I’ve had Giardia for over a month. Ironically, Giardia is contracted through contaminated water – i.e. water that has been exposed to feces. It has a charming circularity, doesn’t it?

So why do we shy away from talking about these topics? Maybe it has something to do with our aversion to bad smells, even referencing associated topics in speech. But when your body starts to malfunction in ways you never thought possible, you realize that it’s really just part of being human, so you’re going to have to get over it, and it’s important that you do, because if you want to travel one day (and enjoy all the amazing and cheap street food out there) there is a good possibility that you might end up staring your stool in the face – but I promise you’ll be better for it.