It makes you wonder when I’ll ever learn. Another trip to the ICU with dangerously low sodium or hyponytremia after a seizure at home might finally be enough to stop me from chugging gallons of water. Water is supposed to be good for you, right? But apparently there is too much of a good thing.

I woke up in a posh private hospital room where I had one-on-one attention without a clue in the world where I was. IV’s hooked up everywhere but no pain anywhere. A desert island level of thirst but no water allowed. An entire team of specialists in and out of my room trying to explain what happened to me and what was continuing to go wrong as a result. My blood pressure was sky high. My heart rate was soaring. I was in something called afib which is an irregular heartbeat that can lead to stroke. More medication. I came pretty close to dying all over drinking too much water.

I don’t know if I can adequately express how disorienting this kind of experience is. How badly I wanted to get out of there. How utterly alone I felt surrounded by medical professionals. I was in the same bed in the same position for nearly ten days. My limbs dead and getting stiffer by the minute but nobody understanding how bad that situation was for my body. In a hospital gown feeling half naked doing everything in that damn bed from getting hand washed by nurses to taking a shit. That also became a problem – my inability to shit while laying in a bed. I lack the muscle control to make that happen which led to a dangerous build up of stool in my bowel which led to something called an ileus. An Ileus is the also known as a functional or paralytic ileus, where the intestines stop their normal wavelike contractions (peristalsis) but there is no physical blockage. This causes food, fluids, and gas to build up in the intestines, leading to symptoms like bloating, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. The only treatment for an ileus is resting the intestines and nothing by mouth including all liquids. This might be my idea of torture. It also explains the length of my hospital stay.

The most frustrating part of the situation was knowing that the reason I couldn’t poop was simply because I was there away from all of the tools I need in order to function in the world. All of the tools I  had at home. The circular logic of it all was maddening. Doctors insisting there was a medical solution to the problem involving drugs that made me poop uncontrollably and enemas. My idea of a nightmare. I begged the hospitalist in charge to let me go home but she was having none of it.

I even went so far as to be evaluated for mental stability with a psychiatrist and was found to be stable but again nothing moved the main doctor in charge. What finally did it was a few more disgusting enemas with enormous amounts of liquid poop all over me. I was horrified but grateful. I would finally be going back to my happy place. I had to make a commitment to drinking only three liters of water a day. I supplement with club soda because it has sodium in it. A compromise, but a compromise that keeps me alive.