Oh Dave! Now

Since my employer transferred me to downtown Oakland a year ago, I have bought my lunch from a city center deli once or twice a week. I usually get the smoked turkey sandwich with cream cheese and avocado but one day I thought I would be adventurous and try the grilled chicken breast with avocado. Of course, when they say avocado, it’s not fresh slices, it’s essentially a guacamole spread from a stainless steel vat.

The clerk, who had okay English, asked what I wanted on it so I told him the basics: mayo, tomato, lettuce, and cheddar cheese.

“Mustard?” he asked.

“No, no mustard,” I replied, speaking as loudly and clearly as possible. I’m soft spoken and my food orders frequently are misheard or misinterpreted so I make a point of speaking firmly in single words, no sentences. Nonetheless, I still too often end up with rolls instead of sliced bread, sprouts instead of lettuce.

“Avocado?”

“Uh, yes, avocado.”  That was the special ingredient in this special menu item. Why would I order the “Chicken Breast with Avocado” sandwich if I didn’t want avocado?

When I got back to my desk, I tore into the sandwich. In the first bite, something tasted funny. Mustardy. “Damn,” I thought. “I told him no mustard. Did he add mustard on purpose to deliberately ruin my lunch?” I opened up the bread but couldn’t see any yellow stuff, just green stuff. I licked some of the avocado and yes, that was where the mustard flavor was coming from. It didn’t taste like their usual creamy avocado spread. I figured they had used too much lemon juice in the batch so I finished the sandwich, disappointed I had tried something different.

Several hours later that night, Friday night, the shit hit the…toilet bowl. Explosively. Abundantly. Completely.

I hardly slept all night, doubled up in cramps. Sweats / chills. More diarrhea, which was so repulsive it caused me to vomit, the worse vomiting I could ever remember, and the first vomiting in years. I spent the weekend reclined in front of the TV when I wasn’t in bed trying to sleep.

I lost 4 pounds which I have come to believe is the average content weight of the human digestive system when filled to maximum capacity. I.e., average brain weight = 3 lbs., soul weight = .046 lbs. (21 grams), fecal weight = 4 lbs.  In fits of frustration, my mom would ask me if I had “shit for brains!” Well, no, but it does appear that I have more shit than brains.

Three months later and I have not returned to that deli. I’m sure the avocado had just been sitting for a day or two too long and they just wanted to use it up. I’d eaten there probably a dozen times before getting sick. Nonetheless, the thought of going back makes me nauseous. It will take time to regain Stomach Trust.

Part of it may be my fault. I have always had a sensitive constitution. I can eat the same thing as someone else and I’ll get sick and they won’t. On a trip to Mexico, I fell victim to Montezuma’s Revenge even though I was super careful about water and ice cubes. On the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, I was so sick I was oblivious. I shuffled down from my room at a Mexican hotel complex near Chichen Itza and the bartender told me about it in Spanish as the news played on TV. The only word I understood was “boom.” All that concerned me was getting a can of 7-up and shuffling back to my room before I exploded again.

I am particularly wary when I get a case of food poisoning having lived through what I call the year of my Stomach Malfunction, which began the week after Janet Jackson’s boob popped out during the Super Bowl halftime show. It’s entirely possible that seeing that happen was the cause of my Malfunction!

Truthfully, I suspect it all started with an order of fried calamari that I had with a martini while I waited for Eric to join me at a hip South of Market hole-in-the-wall San Francisco restaurant. The squid tasted great but sat funny to begin with, like it wouldn’t stop wiggling. After a full dinner we walked a couple of blocks to the Orpheum Theatre on Market St. to see the much-anticipated national touring production of “The Lion King” musical. The puppets were amazing, the music familiar, but the young lead and the Disney-on-ice plot bored us. We left at intermission and went home to Oakland on BART.

Good thing. On the trip home my digestive system became more and more agitated. By the time I got home I was violently ill for two days. After intermittent diarrhea for two weeks, I saw the doctor and tested positive for intestinal parasites. The antibiotics calmed things down for a few weeks. But then for nine long months I went through several adjustments as nothing seemed to make it stop.

These are the gory details and I only mention them to drive home the severity and frustration that came from a simple plate of seafood. I didn’t dare pass gas and wore double underwear briefs, usually padded in the back with a vertical wad of toilet paper. I kept a roll of toilet paper and extra underwear in my car for emergencies. I drank Metamucil at first and then Trader Joe’s Secrets of Psyllium mixed in water and cranberry juice, twice a day, morning and evening, even when traveling (a total drag). My friend Tony gifted me the book Digestive Wellness. My eating habits changed dramatically and for the first time in my life I craved beef. I had lost several pounds so I felt justified in feeding my craving and several times a week became a connoisseur of Carl’s Jr.’s and Jack in the Box’s biggest, beefiest burgers. They were the only thing with flavor that didn’t make me nauseous. And they were the best at slowing down my digestion and giving me a day or two of relief from the Process.

The Process was this: about an hour after a meal I would have to go to the bathroom. Over the next hour the Process was consistent, even “regular” if I dare to use that term. Without getting too graphic (since it would violate the policy stated at the end of my “Dream Dump” blog entry), I would have to make three trips during the hour for 1) nuggets, 2) tadpoles, and 3) the soup bomb.

My doctor was stumped when the latest round of stool samples showed no more signs of parasites. He sent me to a gastroenterologist who in five minutes diagnosed me with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). After the formality of a colonoscopy she would prescribe a drug that I would have to take for the rest of my life. Since she wasn’t paying much attention when I told her the story of Janet Jackson, the calamari, the Lion King, and the sudden onset of symptoms, I was very skeptical of her diagnosis.

Anyone who has had a colonscopy knows it isn’t fun. Mine had a bit of levity to it which I shared with Leah Garchik who mentioned it in her SF Chronicle column. The results of the procedure were inconclusive, murky and speculative at best. MAYBE there were microscopic signs of IBS. Better take a pill just to be sure. No spicy foods again ever (this coming from a Latina doctor). I never filled the prescription and got a referral to another specialist for a 2^nd opinion. But he couldn’t see me until six weeks later.

Before that appointment rolled around, one morning I felt like I was coming down with a cold. I increased my vitamin C and took a twice daily herbal supplement, a capsule filled with a yellow powdery blend of echinacea and goldenseal. Two days later at work, I ate lunch and an hour later proceeded to the bathroom to start the Process yet again—nuggets, tadpoles, soup bomb. Much to my surprise, I took a normal dump! With a normal stool! No soup bomb!

My boss laughed when I walked into his office and triumphantly announced that I had just taken my first normal crap in nine months. I wondered why? Had I eaten something different? Had too much psyllium? Then it hit me—the goldenseal. It had to be the goldenseal. My late friend Tom Young had introduced me to goldenseal and Paavo Airola’s classic book on natural healing “How to Get Well” and goldenseal had helped before to shorten illnesses.

Goldenseal is an herb that has been used medicinally in China and by certain Native American tribes for hundreds of years. It’s a well-known herbal supplement today and in fact, the plant has become an endangered species due to its popularity. At the time I was sick there wasn’t much information about it available on the web but one of the traditional uses of it is indeed for digestive problems.

After work, I stopped by a health food store and bought capsules of 100% goldenseal and started a 3-times-a-day regimen for two weeks, emulating the typical dosage for all the rounds of antibiotics I had taken over the last year. It worked. I have never experienced the dreaded Stomach Malfunction Process again.

I still got the 2^nd opinion even though I was cured. Luckily it was just a simple sigmoidoscopy in his office—he didn’t find any evidence of IBS. I told him my theory about the goldenseal and he didn’t discount it but didn’t exactly buy it either. Most people who hear this story doubt that it was the goldenseal that cured me—they think that whatever caused my Stomach Malfunction had just run its course. It’s pointless to argue. I’m just glad it ended and hopefully I will never experience it again.

So you understand my horror when I get food poisoning from a restaurant, especially one I visit regularly. I shouldn’t get attached to one restaurant—it has happened too many times. There was the bargain assembly-line deli chain in San Francisco. The Korean restaurant where all I ever got was a chicken bowl. The gourmet salad bar. The list goes on of restaurants where I got my lunch on a regular basis and finally got food poisoning and had to give them up, most of them forever.

As I sip my soup from the fantastic San Francisco Soup Company where I get lunch at least twice a week, I know I’m pushing my luck and should give them a rest, try someplace else, or bring leftovers from home. Because sooner or later, I’ll visit on an off day or get the bottom of an old batch that will make me ill. But until then, a person’s got to eat and eat I will. Two things are for sure: never again will I eat calamari and never again will I watch a Janet Jackson concert, on that you can depend.