Scat-ol-ogy Noun. The study of poops.
While training to be a hiking docent for the Southern California Nature Conservancy we were taught how we could determine the areas that animals inhabited even though they were nocturnal by looking for their poop. Different shapes and sizes determined the species and close inspection could often tell you what they had most recently eaten.
The study of human poops is one that my sister Carol will not allow to be talked about in her presence. Unfortunately a lack of knowledge about the human body’s elimination processes or at least what the end result should look like from a healthy body shortchanges us. Looking back on my life I realize that no one ever really talked to me about what a healthy bowel movement should look like, its frequency or consistency, much less what I should do if I were to encounter problems.
I bring this topic up as I realized this morning that I am finally regular and it only took me fifty some odd years to get that way. That is a sorry state of affairs for the elucidation of human scatology. I wonder how my life might have been different if I had been taught that foul smelling gas and stools the consistency of thin cream of wheat cereal were not normal. From the television commercials I observed growing up, I didn’t have constipation or diarrhea so everything must be okay, or so I thought.
The obnoxious smelling gas coming from my body resulted in separate bedrooms for my first husband and I, which products like Beano (to help digest vegetables) or Lactaid (to help digest diary) could not quell. After our eventual divorce I had my second round of Colitis during which time I worked from home on those days when I couldn’t make it in time to the upstairs bathroom at my office (can you say embarrassing?). Through fog inducing drugs and the grace of God I finally got to the point that I could actually leave the porcelain throne for hours at a time but things were still anything but normal and this appeared to be the best I could hope for.
My husband Michael is the first person I’ve met where we both felt comfortable talking about poop. He used to proudly announce that his daily constitution was “well formed, odorless and buoyant”. Three years ago when he stopped his daily bragging I should have had a clue that something was wrong but I just thought he had finally gotten tired of his morning disclosure and had moved on to other topics. It wasn’t until after a trip to the Emergency Room with a temp of 103 degrees (which for an adult I learned was not a good thing) did I discover that he had Ulcerative Colitis and had been bleeding with diarrhea for weeks and was now anemic. He decided to take the allopathic medical route for his condition, which eventually led to the complete removal of his colon and three surgeries within six months.
I on the other hand opted for the help from a Naturopathic Medical Doctor. Actually she was thrown in my path and I asked her for some help with the gas that still plagued me as it was affecting my work as a massage therapist. Can you imagine being in a small quiet room with this 120 pound woman ripping a couple of them off in the middle of your massage? Not the type of relaxation and healing environment I was going after.
Anyway after working with the naturopath for two years I was able to get to the bottom of my digestive issues which consisted of low stomach acid, insufficient enzyme production and food sensitivities. None of the dozen or more doctors I had seen over the years had ever tested me for any of these issues. As long as I wasn’t bleeding to death or didn’t have cancer, everything was okay in their book. Now with the help of enzymes and a wheat free, sugar free diet I too can now say that my morning constitution is well formed, odorless and buoyant.
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