Talking Shit!

The other day I was speaking to someone about how it is that we seem to be able to talk about what comes out of our mouths when we’re unwell, but we can’t talk about what comes out of our bottoms. This someone has Crohn’s, so knows a thing or two about life revolving around food, bottoms, and toilets! Something I can also relate to given that I am 10 weeks into my trip to Peru – a ‘developing country’ as we in the ‘first world’ like to refer to it. (I keep wondering about that; “No, we’re not developing. This is it thank you very much!” Anyway, define developing - they might not have clean running water but they’re a damn site happier from what I can tell.)

So, back to the story. 7 weeks ago, I drank a suspiciously lukewarm cup of chamomile tea from an urn which I (now) suspect contained not-quite-properly-boiled-water (and everyone knows you can’t drink the water from the taps in these backward countries!) 2 hours later I was feeling decidedly nauseous and gutsy. 3 hours later I was sitting on the loo (ensuite thank God) with the (developing) world coming out of my arse whilst simultaneously vomiting into the bin which I had skilfully removed the used toilet paper from just in time (everyone knows you can’t flush paper down the toilet in these backward countries!) And that was me for the rest of the night.

During the next 24 hours I had nothing but water (bottled obvs) and told myself I was now OK, it was all part of ‘the purge’ – the week before I had sat an ayahuasca ceremony where the penultimate hour of the 6 hour experience was spent with my head over a bucket not just vomiting the residual medicine which had now served its purpose, but also getting rid of wordless things deep in my psyche that had also served their purpose (indeed had probably over-stayed their welcome by several decades!) So, although I felt totally wiped out by my night on the toilet, I also felt somewhat cleansed. I mean, this trip was always going to be a turning point in my life, I knew I needed a deep process that would enable change, so I guess I had a lot of old shit that I needed to let go of first.

But 48 hours later when I still hadn’t eaten anything and still hadn’t slept and was experiencing some tachycardia (both symptoms of dehydration apparently), I asked the guest house to call the doctor out. The doctor took one look at me and suggested I should come to the hospital to get tested and rehydrated. Really?! Another trip abroad, another hospital visit?! (Honestly, at this point, I could write a book: “A Travellers Guide to Hospital Admissions in Foreign Countries.” – maybe I’ll pitch it to Lonely Planet). And the notable thing about it was that it’s such business-as-usual for me to travel and end up in hospital, that I didn’t even bother telling anyone back home. It just didn’t seem newsworthy. Mad.

“You’ve got salmonella.” - No shit! “You’ll need to stay in overnight and we’ll start on the I.V. antibiotics.”

To be fair, I didn’t protest even on the inside. I was in a pretty comfortable private room in the guest double bed, with an ensuite (phew) and amazing views over Cusco. Anyway, one night? Oh per-lease! That’s a walk in the park. This time last year I was hooked up in an Indian hospital for almost a week! This is nothing for an old pro like me! And despite having to wheel the I.V. stand (ala Tom Hanks in Philadelphia) to the toilet several times during the night – you pee A LOT when you’re being rehydrated drip by drip – I slept like a baby. I even kept in the rather dry and lukewarm (don’t!) chicken and rice they served me for lunch and equally dry and lukewarm chicken and rice they served me for dinner.

I returned to my guest house feeling brand new and grateful that I’d taken out an insurance policy! (I often don’t, depending on where I’m going, given that I would need to sell one of my kidneys to afford a cover which includes asthma, anaphylaxis and a brain haemorrhage! But (top tip for my Lonely Planet guide) buying a policy where you don’t declare those things, still covers you for a hospital admission and treatment for salmonella!

But the next few days I went into a bit of a hole – antibiotics can do that, they can throw the gut-brain out of balance apparently. But it was a necessary hole, one in which I found the process of change I was looking for, hiding in a dark corner. And when I climbed out clutching hold of it, I felt something had shifted. But what was still present was my ‘upset tummy’. Was it upset? What was it upset about? Who had upset it? Or is that just what we say when we’ve got the shits because it’s easier than telling people we’ve got diarrhoea?! (even more peculiar a ‘funny tummy’ - my stomach might have been having a laugh, but I certainly wasn’t!) Apparently, it’s not very ladylike to talk about it, and it doesn’t seem to be very manly either, it seems like we’ve all been conditioned not to speak openly of what happens ‘down there’.

But the shits I had. Most days to some extent or other, despite eating all the right things, and avoiding all the (very tempting) wrong things (the food in Peru is great FYI). And despite taking pro-biotics and active charcoal (top travellers tip!), I was soon reduced to a diet of white rice and bananas with the occasional bit of boiled chicken and lots of muna (Andean mint) tea. Yes, that was my Christmas dinner!

A month later I left Cusco and the Sacred Valley where I’d been for 6 weeks and flew to Lima. The rainy season was well underway in the Andes, and I needed sunshine, I needed beaches and most of all, I needed to get DOWN. Cusco is over 11,000 feet high, and the altitude wasn’t getting any easier - apparently it takes around 3 months for the body to produce more red blood cells so that it can adjust. My body seemed to be producing a lot of something, but red blood cells wasn’t it!

If I thought the food in Cusco was hard to resist, in Lima there was even more on offer, everywhere you looked. But those of you who know me, or have read some of my previous musings, will know that there are a few things on this earth that I can’t eat, that in fact might kill me if I did, that in fact have been responsible for more than a few scary experiences in my time and for a couple of hospital visits too. So, eating out when I’m travelling is always fraught with some anxiety. To be fair, eating out when I’m not travelling is never a stress-free experience, but throw in a bit of a language barrier and less cultural awareness around food allergies and I can be well and truly in the danger zone. So, when I do eat out, I tend to be forced to choose less healthy options given that they’re much less likely to have something in that will mean I wished I’d sold that kidney and declared all after all!

So, that’s what happened when I arrived in Lima, I ate a few high fatty things that triggered my diarrhoea again, just after I’d actually had a few good days. I was pretty convinced by now that I still had some salmonella going on and that I likely had some kind of parasite – pretty sure I saw something swimming for its life in the bowl! What? Too much information?? Well, that’s the point of this story, we need to talk about this shit! When I’ve told people about my salmonella experience, I find myself saying things like “coming out of both ends” or “being sick and ‘the other end’ too” (cue Miranda’s Mum in a “what I call…” moment) And, when you’re shitting your way across a South American country on your own with your whole day-to-day life being controlled by what you can and can’t eat, when you can and can’t eat it, how close the nearest toilet is, how dehydrated you are because you must have lost at least 8 pints of water out of your arse by lunchtime alone…trust me, you need to talk about it!!

Along with money, sex, and relationships, we need to learn to speak about the unspeakable (even every time I type the word ‘shit’, Microsoft suggests that I might like to use less offensive language??!!) And no wonder we are so ‘anally retentive’ cos if we can’t speak of what comes out, or needs to come out, or comes out with eager enthusiasm, or wants to come out but is stuck…I could go on! (I’m remembering the kids book I used to read to my sons when they were little; ‘Everybody Poos’, definitely a step in the right direction, well done Taro Gomi… ah Japanese, interesting…) Well, it’s all a reflection of our psychological processes and God knows we desperately need to talk about them. Body and mind, one and the same, surely, we can all agree on that at this point.

And then, the other day, after things were getting so bad that I was considering either; a) bringing my flight home forward, or b) going to see a doctor (please God not another painful canular and hospital admission, that would be a record even by my standards, twice in the same trip… actually no! I’ve just remembered; Czech Republic 2018! Boom!! - I really should write this guide) because I really didn’t think my body or mind could take another 2 weeks of this. But then a feeling, an intuition, a deep knowing dropped into my bones out of nowhere; the probiotics that I’d been taking on an increasing dose, contained lactose! and (it might not surprise you to know) I am lactose intolerant! So, the very thing I had been taking to try to stop my diarrhoea was giving me diarrhoea!! Seriously, you can’t make this shit up!! And, it turns out, the symptoms of lactose reaction are the same as parasites; diarrhoea, stomach cramps, nausea, bloating, gas (yes let’s talk about that too - I feel a kid’s book coming on; ‘Everybody…err…gasses’??!!)

So, maybe I still have some salmonella going on, maybe I do have parasites, I don’t know. But I do know I’ve just been to the loo and NOT had diarrhoea! Everybody Poos again! Yay! But I don’t think I’m out of the woods yet, I still need to take it easy, I think it’s fair to say that 8 weeks of this has left my gut health, shall we say a little under parr! But I’m out celebrating – with a herbal tea, and the dread of my impending 15-hour flight is beginning to subside a little.

So, there we go, 3 months in Peru and it comes down to this. I could have told you about the incredible people I’ve met, the sacred sites I’ve visited, what I’ve learnt about myself and the world through the medicine teachings of this land which they say represents the heart of the earth…and I will, because they deserve to be written about, need to be written about. But, for now, for the sake of the, let’s face it, the many people who struggle every day with Crohn’s or Coeliac, or IBS or IBD, or some other bowel condition - and for all our sakes – let’s just talk shit!