Digestive incompetence

Ugh.

It's half eight. I should be at work, or at least making my way there. Instead I'm drenched in sweat, and in bed.

I experimented on Saturday night with acting like a normal person, having a meal out, and a couple of beers. I had planned carefully, and selected a Polish restaurant (home to well-cooked vegetables, potatoes and meat). I chose a pasteurised beer. I wasn't expecting to have any issues.

Sunday morning I had some diarrhoea. Just a few bouts, and nothing too alarming. I was a bit peeved at its re-appearance after a fairly successful week of digestion, but figured it would probably settle down if I treated my guts with kid gloves for a day or so. I went easy on them at lunch with a vegetable soup, and had no immediate problems. I went easy on my guts at dinner, with boiled to death vegetables, rice and a recovery shake. I thought it'd be fine.

Overnight I've realised that something has upset the gut gods and they are showing their displeasure.

I haven't slept much. Too much running to the loo and pain from those blasted cramps that I thought I'd left behind. They are miserable things, those cramps. It feels as though my intestines are the gut gods' spaghetti, being stabbed, pulled out and then twirled on their forks. The gut gods are never in a hurry to eat. They play with their food. I wish I wasn't on the menu...

So, anyway. In between trips to the loo this morning, I've called work and explained that I have a bout of gastric incompetence. They are already aware I have the digestive age of a newborn baby - I've previously had to explain why I was slumped over my desk and clutching my guts whilst contorting my features into an expression of agony in a professionally unbecoming manner. Rather me than them, apparently.

It's a bit odd that I'm drenched in sweat. The window was open all night and the room a pleasant temperature. I shouldn't have been oozing buckets. I'd like to change the sheets but have that feeling of weak grimness which easily persuades me that changing the bedding is too much effort at this moment in time, and that turning over the pillows and duvet would be a far better (if grimmer) plan.

Tired.

Sick of the symptoms.

Would like someone to be able to tell me what's up, so I have a better chance of controlling it. Right now I'd also like to turn the clock back, politely decline Saturday's social event and have another jacket spud with tuna yoghurt and a few pints of water instead. But I can't do that. I might be able to sleep, though...

In case you missed it earlier...

...the 'King of Viagra' has been jailed for fraud.

There are a number of aspects I like about this story:

• a bad guy has been jailed;
  
• a doctor has been found guilty of flogging paint-covered placebos...;
  
• ... to numerous Americans, hampering their chances of procreation and limiting population growth (thus in many ways providing a valuable public service);
  
• From further research, I understand the fakes were sold at £10-£15 a pop, which suggests the chap has only managed to flog in the region of 10,000 of the things, which strikes me as being a bit inept;
  
• It particularly tickles me that, despite the victims being located across the globe, the proceeds of crime will benefit the UK.

The last point suggests to me that, rather than jailing this chap at the present time, it would have been far more beneficial for him to be allowed to continue his fraud, in fact, perhaps being coached in the art, making greater profits before being apprehended and reaping greater rewards for the rest of us from the proceeds of crime. Of course, none of this will actually make any difference to my tax bill (or yours, for that matter), but I (rather cynically) find it heartening to think that this chap has unwittingly brought cash into the UK economy which might keep a few consultants in work for a few more months.

Incidentally, acquaintances inform me that the public sector is spending on consultancy like there's no tomorrow. This is largely because, as far as they're concerned, there is no tomorrow and all budgets will be slashed. But meanwhile public sector consultancy is booming. Its a funny old ecomony...

In other news, I am immensely pleased to report the recent production of several solid sh*ts. I cannot begin to describe how proud I am of them. (So pleased was I, I had to restrain myself from taking pictures...)

Small victories

To set the scene, in the last month I have:

• lost 4kgs;
  
• produced a large quantity of diarrhoea;
  
• produced three solid sh7ts;
  
• had perhaps two nights' uninterrupted sleep;
  
• missed six training sessions;
  
• missed a wedding;
  
• spent a lot of time when I should have been asleep doubled up with stomach cramps; and
  
• spent a lot of time when I should have been working making exceedingly good use of the spacious and capacious ladies loos.

Surprisingly, given that I've had a whole month of gastric incompetence and averaged less than 5 hrs broken sleep a night, it's been mostly OK. The last couple of weeks when I've started losing weight more quickly have been a bit of a drag. At my current rate of weight loss, I will cease to exist around the start of 2010. But even that's not as bad as it seems, as I'm assuming that before then, my digestive system will have bucked up its ideas and started behaving normally (or at least that the absolute rate of weight loss will reduce as I get lighter).

I should probably have jacked in training a bit earlier than I did, and with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps going for a run last Sunday (just because I happened to be near some decent terrain) might have been a bit of a daft idea. It was a damned nice run, though...

I got a bit desperate last week. (It was a particularly miserable week.) I had a look on eBay to see whether anyone was flogging a spare, functioning digestive system, but sadly I found none, so it looks like I'm stuck with the irritable one I've got. Irritable is probably not the right adjective. It probably was irritable before I did my best to ignore it and continue training (despite food hanging around in my bod for somewhere between 20 minutes and 7 hrs) in the hope it'd pass. It's probably now reached the stage of being really rather pissed off with me.

I guess I'm not the most caring owner my digestive system could have had (and given the amount I eat, it's probably already done an average lifetime's work). If I ever had cause to put my digestive system up for sale on eBay, I think I'd be hard pressed to find any takers. I suppose it more or less has end-to-end functionality, seems free of ulcers, and doesn't appear to have any inflammatory disease, so maybe there could be a few people out there who'd be prepared to take it. They'd be unlucky sods, though...

On the up side, courtesy of a complete lack of rowing, I've already managed to grab about 24 hrs sleep this weekend, and am about to hit the sack in search of some more. I'm counting this as a victory - the improvement has got to start somewhere, hasn't it...?