Ever since my nutectomy, my gastro-intestinal system has gone cattywampus (it's a medical term). That has become very evident over the weekend. Without going into too much detail, let's just say I have gotten a lot of reading done this weekend...and nothing else...nothing...just reading...a lot of reading...only reading. Usually just the opposite is the case. I mean, I get a lot of reading done, but I am usually multi-tasking at the same time. No multi-tasking at all this weekend. I tried one of the usual ways to get things going, drinking lots of liquids, which only resulted in waking up every fifteen minutes to either pee, or unproductively read. Anyway, my GI doctor and have been trying to get my medications adjusted, with little luck. We completely cut one medication out and have cut way back on the other. Even that seems to be too much. And then something dawned on me.
I asked myself what has changed since all of this happened. I have lost my job. I have gotten cancer. I have had surgery. I am going through chemotherapy. The first thing to rule out would be stress, of course not having a job to answer to does cut down on stress levels, but at the same time being out of a job and having cancer tends to stress one out pretty good. As for the chemo, these latest GI symptoms started showing up before I started chemo. That leaves one thing (literally and figuratively), the surgery. My testosterone levels were cut in half with the surgery. So, that is where I went to the internet to do a little research...very careful research, using only medical terms and making sure the pages didn't have pictures. It turns out that doctors are investigating a link between high testosterone levels and GI problems like mine. A-HA! The problem is that most men are not willing to have a nutectomy just to see on the off chance that this makes them feel better. Lucky for them, I happened to cut my testosterone levels and get the results for them. I "took one for the team", well technically I guess the doctors took one from me for the team. That makes me a testicular martyr, and I feel I should be heralded as such. Who knows, because of what I went through, men may be asked in the future "Would you rather poop too much or keep both of your balls?". You know, seeing it written down doesn't make my new research sound near as noble. But there are other ways to lower testosterone levels, without resorting to getting rid of one of the twins. You could join a theater company, or watch Oprah, or become a hairdresser, or rent Sex and the City, or drive a Mini, or a Miata, or a VW Bug convertible, or play softball...oops, that last one was a way to increase testosterone in women. But all joking and offensive stereotypes and prejudices aside (no matter how true they are), there are medications that can lower testosterone levels (and I am not just talking about Appletinis and Cosmos). On a serious note, there is a link to testosterone levels and "mens'" cancers so in some cases the testosterone levels are knocked down to prevent cancer from reoccurring.
Where does this leave me? Well, luckily I have a doctor that is very open to new research. One of the beautiful things about the internet (no, not porn) is that those of us that were previously scattered around the globe with various maladies, now have a way to get together and compare notes. My stomach surgery is generally so successful that people quit going to the GI doctor, so side effect research ends there. However, several of us Nissen procedure people got to talking on the internet and we were developing reactive hypoglycemia. I told my doctor about it, who was very interested, and developed a game plan for me to deal with it, now that we suspect what mechanism is causing it. I am anxious to talk to him about this latest thing that I have stumbled upon. Usually when I mention something I have read on the internet he is familiar with it (except for that Richard Gere/gerbil thing, I thought everyone had heard about that), and anxious to see some facts that back them up. Losing half of your testosterone production and feeling more like a regular pooping person are some pretty interesting results (don't worry, not interesting enough for me to document photographically). Don't get me wrong though, I still have other GI issues, this doesn't mean I am going to run out to Chipotle, stuff in some Indian food, and top it off with some wasabi and a ghost chili. But it does give me hope that as a side effect from this cancer stuff, I may be one step closer to being a normal person...with one testicle...and stomach surgery that left wire in my stomach...and an incredibly pathetic mustache. Well at least as close to normal as someone like me can get.
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