My Regression

I started working at Applebee's the summer of 2013. I was a waitress there and as you can imagine server life has no breaks, and you eat a lot of the restaurant's food.  I worked there until early 2014, so all that time I was eating a ton of gluten (although I still didn't realize I had a gluten allergy) with only one incident. So of course I didn't think much of it.  I started a new job in March of 2014 at a daycare center.  I was a teacher assistant so of course we got share in the snacks and have lunches if we wanted to, and mt at home diet never changed either.   Late that fall is when I really started to regress.  I woke up one morning got ready for work, and then all of a sudden I was taken to floor with stomach pains. My body was sweating and hot, and the pain makes you shake.  I of course went to the restroom and ended up taking Imodium to help stop everything.   I texted my mom (because who wouldn't) and told her what had happened that morning.  We agreed that it could have just been something funky I ate and not to worry to much about it because everyone deals with stomach issues here and there. I continued on my way not worrying about it too much.  If you ever used a costive (Imodium, Pepto, etc.) you know that it can hold for a few days. So, I didn't have any issues for a couple days after that, and I figured I was fine.  Shortly after (timeline is fuzzy) I woke up to get ready for work and I was hit with the same issue.  I took more medicine just to make it to work, and then had to take some more at work just function.  It's not easy having to run the restroom every couple minutes when you are watching a classroom full of children....after a few repeats of this over the next week or two, I decided to get a probitoic, and my mom suggested slowly eliminate things from diet and see if  have a reaction.  I took my probiotic and the episodes became a little less frequent but still once to twice a week. Which was still too many.  I started eliminating items from my diet. I was hoping my body could handle all my food. I didn't want to be gluten free, or dairy free. Those sounded miserable. So I took out gluten (or so I thought)for a few days, no change.  Then I took out diary for a few days, I thought I noticed a small improvement. Hey I think I found it!  You know what else I found out? They make a pill if you can't have dairy. This isn't going to be so bad after all I figured. I can eat dairy as long as I have my pill and we are good to go!  Oh poor naive Victoria. There was so much you didn't even know.   I was still having some issues but they did let up in the intensity for a while.  I just thought it would continue to get better and better.  I remember however and my works, Christmas meeting/potluck I brought Red Lobster biscuits. Boy are those things delicious! I am not ashamed to say I binged on those so much. I didn't have a lactose pill though. So I'm sure you can imagine what happened the next morning.... I was absolutely crippled! I was on imodium almost to it's full dose. I couldn't hardly walk in between potty breaks.  It took two hours before I even calmed down. I was at my breaking point.  I was going to call the doctor on my break that day.   I called my doctor and set up an appointment, who immediately told me he was going to set me up with a GI doc.  He told me to continue to take my Imodium as needed, until I can get in to see the specialist. The specialist was about a month out, which really sucked. In between my waiting I was about every other day with taking my medicine I couldn't even function on a normal level any more without it....My eyes were about to be partially open. Little did I know what my future holds.

The Following Summer

We are now several months in from when I first started  taking my probiotic.  I religiously took my probiotic morning and night because I was terrified of getting sick again.  I was doing so well over the last several months that I didn't want to go back.  I still did not understand what was or what could be wrong with me at all.  I had tried to track what ate with how I felt. It made no logical sense, but I knew that these probiotics were working so I was going to keep taking them!   However I did't know what lie ahead.  I remember working at the movie theater one Saturday, and we're getting ready to open and I had to rush to the bathroom again!  Panic instantly rushes through my head.  I am not ready to start this again.  I give it some chances to pass, paranoid that I may have to ditch a customer I was helping and run to the bathroom.  Thankfully when that did happen there was another employee was free and able to cover my line.  I finally was able to get some medicine in me and have it relax.   I went home that day my anxiety high and hoping to talk to my mom for some comforting words.  This stuff was so unpredictable and the pain was so intense that it has kind of turned me into a hypochondriac.   I went home and my mom said not to panic since it could just be something I ate or just your body going through stuff.  It happens and every one deals with it so I continued to try and live my life and not worrying about it.   After a couple more weeks, it hit me again. This time around it was not as frequent but it still happened too often for mine or anyone's own comfort.  We decided to try another stool test.  I  was hoping for good news, while I didn't want a ton of issues to surface, but I wanted to know what was wrong and what I was fighting. We even ran ultrasounds on my gallbladder to see if there was any issues.   Sadly the test came back negative.  The doctor said to let it ride for a bit longer and see if subsides.  I switched up my probiotics, and started feeling better again, but I still felt beat up emotionally over what is going on.   Two tests down, and nothing to be found. What the heck is going on?  I shortly started a second job as waitress once I got my confidence back and was feeling great...besides my headaches but that's a bit of a different story...

{{Two Weeks...and More}}

When I got back from Hawaii, it was time to start diving back into my life again.  Which meant I needed to get a car, and a job.  So I went back to the movie theater part time, and I got my other old job back and the bookstore, (formally Borders but in the middle of switching to Books-a-Million.).
As the bookstore was going through an ownership change it meant changing and remodeling everything on the inside.  I was a morning shift of 8-5.  My body had taken a small rest of about a week that it wasn't acting out.  So I thought maybe my stomach pain and issues were just due to the stress of traveling and extreme diet change.   However, once I started back at work it didn't take long for it to kick in.  I was at work maybe a week, (the timeline is a bit fuzzy) when my stomach started acting out again.  I was at work shelving books when it hit me like a mack truck. I had to rush to the bathroom every 5 minutes.  I was in extreme pain and struggled to leave the restroom in order to get back to work.  My stomach felt like I ate rocks all day, it was so swollen and bloated all the time.  I couldn't nor did I want to eat,  I tried drinking Powerade to replenish my electrolytes and have something in my system.  I drank a ton of Rootbeer because it caused me to belch a ton, which helped relieve pressure in my stomach.    The store was about to open and I was nervous about helping people all by myself because what if I had to rush to bathroom in the middle of  checking some one out?  Talk about horrible and awkward, what I couldn't get away in time and had an accident?  What about driving to and from places? How do I deal with this scary unknown that is causing my body to shut down?

After about three weeks of this and realizing it wasn't going to go away we finally made a doctor appointment.   I went in for an evaluation of my symptoms with nervousness that they weren't going to find out what was wrong.   After talking about everything, I was required to take a stool test to see if there was any bacteria or bugs living in there that could be causing my issues.  (you can imagine my excitement...) It took me three days to be able to go in a cup...shocking, I know. Considering other day I was having extreme potty issues, but I was not looking forward to this test so of course my body was like "nah we aren't going to potty right now." Besides the fact that I was practically living on Pepto-Bismol at this point.  After attempting to test my stool, I went back in for my check up...they didn't find anything in the test, but instead gave me a heavy narcotic for my cramps and basically told me good luck.   If that's not frustrating I don't know what is.  I was crushed and didn't know what else to do at this point.  If a doctor can't help me then what am I supposed to do?  I didn't want to believe that I would have to live with this forever but when you aren't offered hope what are you supposed to think?    After a few more days my stomach started to get worse. It was so bloated I thought I would pop. I just went home that night and laid on the couch because I was in extreme pain.  I had tried peppermint pills which did mildly help with my stomach pains.   My mom came home one night with a probiotic for me to try which is supposed to help with stomach issues.  At this point I am not well versed in the importance of good bacteria in your gut.  I was willing to try to see if it helped.  Within half an hour I had significant relief in my  stomach bloating.  I was so excited and hopeful that that's all I needed.  I wish my story ended here.....

So it begins.....Day One

   September 2011, (I don't remember the specific date)   I wake up in a Hotel in Korea.  Today is our last day in Korea.  I was there for a missions trip with YWAM.   We had trained in Hawaii for 3 months, then toured Japan and South Korea for another 3 months.  I had done so well during my whole time there.  I was only sick once in Hawaii, but I was great the rest of my time there. 
I get up to get ready, making sure my bags were packed, the room gets tidied up, the usual when you are getting ready to check out and head to an airport.  As I was getting ready, I was taken to the floor with intense stomach cramps. I quickly rushed to the bathroom, while my roommate started to get up and get herself ready.  I start to feel better and then come out of the bathroom, feeling embarrassed, since I have to share it with my roommate.  She asks me if I am okay, and tell her it's probably just a case of traveling anxiety. I am sure I will be fine soon.   I continue to get ready when I'm taken to floor again for 5-10 minutes, same as my last episode.  I rush to the bathroom again asking my roommate if she can do some of her routine outside of the bathroom.  She, very nicely, allows me my time but starts to get concerned.  She still has to shower, and we don't have a ton of time. I feel embarrassed that she has to shower, and that I am sick, I am starting to getting worried because I don't how I am going to handle driving in a bus with no bathroom, and the trying to deal with this on an airplane....
I finish my stuff and then just sit on the bed trying to distract myself with the TV while she showers. 
I get hit again with such intense pain that I have to rush to another teammate's room to use their bathroom since ours was occupied.  (I just loved getting more people involved.)   I finally got a hold of some Pepto-Bismal, and try to choke down these chalky pills.  My body is shaking and I am already getting nauseous, I am just praying that I can handle this bus ride and that my body will calm down.   After a couple doses of Pepto, my body actually starts to plug up, however my stomach is still in a certain amount of pain. It has become manageable now, although I am still nervous about this bus and plane ride.   

    I make it through the bus ride to the airport, I have hardly ate all day due to how crappy I feel.  We board the plane and I haven't had any more issues.   The flight from Korea to Hawaii is a 9hr red eye flight. Seems easy enough I am just going to sleep through the flight.   I did get to sleep for a few hours but was woken up out of my sleep with cramps that take you to the floor.   Holy crap (no pun intended) What the heck do I do now? I am sitting in the middle seat of a very large airplane and need to figure if the bathroom is unoccupied and where its at.  I also hope that I am not gonna have to take it up for a long period of time nor do I want smell up the airplane....I am beyond nervous, embarrassed, and in pain.   I quickly choke down some more pepto, and race to the bathroom 30,000 feet in the air.   Thank God that is the only issue I had on that plane.  We finally land in Hawaii and get back to our campus rooms.  While I was still in some discomfort I was able to eat and keep the food in me, while just getting ready to leave to meet my parents.  
I had no idea what I was in store for me over the next several years.....