I can still remember the dream I had the night the symptoms first started. In it, I was eating a bowl of cereal. But when I looked down, the cereal was actually a bowl of long, sharp sticks. Repulsed by them, I ran to get something to drink, taking huge gulps of water to wash the cereal-sticks down, only to realize I had just accidentally consumed water from a dirty fish tank. Gripped with nausea, I was certain I was going to throw up.

I woke up from the dream still feeling nauseous, like I really had just eaten sticks and drank dirty fish tank water. Groggy, I got out of bed, the disturbing dream still playing over and over in my mind, intertwined with the sour feeling in my stomach. I made my way to the bathroom. Maybe if I did actually throw up, it would get rid of this awful feeling. Except I didn’t need to throw up.

I sat down on the toilet. What came out of me was painful. Violent. Urgent. As if my body was trying to expel poison. There was a sharp pain in my gut, like I really did have sticks in there.

It wasn’t diarrhea. Not really. That’s an important distinction to make. Most people would hear someone describe an urgent, violent, nauseous experience in the bathroom as diarrhea, but it was different from that. It didn’t have the loose, liquidy quality that true diarrhea would have. It was fully formed, but it needed to come out right now. And it hurt.

Something was definitely not right.

It was the summer of 2005, and I was twenty-three years old. I had graduated from the State University of New York at Fredonia with a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts with a minor in Communications. I’d had grand plans. I was going to be a famous Hollywood filmmaker or screenwriter, maybe work in television. These illustrious career plans had somehow not materialized. I was living with my parents and working part time at Sam’s Club in Rochester, New York, as a COS, or check-out supervisor.

As a COS, sometimes my duties involved me going in at six a.m. to help get the club ready to open for business. One morning, not long after the incident I just described, I was driving in for one of those early a.m. opening shifts. With no traffic on the roads at that hour, the drive usually took about twenty minutes. Well, five minutes into the drive, I had a sudden, sharp, twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had to go to the bathroom, and I had to go right now.

I didn’t know what to do. If I turned around and went back home, I would definitely end up being late to work. If I kept going, I was 90% sure I was going to shit my pants before I got there. All I could do was keep driving; it didn’t make sense to turn around. I was coming up to a gas station. Was it open? I wasn’t sure. I envisioned getting out of the car, going into the gas station, and maybe there was no public restroom, or maybe there was one but I’d have to ask an attendant for a key.

I couldn’t do it. I didn’t stop. All I could do was clench up every muscle in my body, try to stay focused, and try to keep driving. I was running through every scenario possible in my head. It was so early in the morning. Could I pull over to the side of the road and just go on someone’s front lawn like an animal? I was starting to think that might be the most rational thing to do—that’s how desperate I was becoming. With no one else on the road, I gunned it, speeding toward work as fast as I could.

Somehow, what seemed like an eternity later, bathed in a cold sweat, I pulled into the Sam’s Club parking lot. Employees were required to park in an area of the lot farthest away from the building, leaving the prime parking spots for customers. I got out of the car, every fiber of my being trying to keep everything in. I did an awkward straight-legged sprint for the front door, saying a prayer over and over in my head that I was not about to defecate in my pants on my way in to work.

Here’s the kicker: At that hour of the day, the doors to Sam’s Club were locked because the club was not open yet. Those of us who had to be in prior to the actual hours of operation had to ring a buzzer and wait for a member of management to come open the emergency exit to let us in. Sometimes someone came right way. Sometimes it would take several minutes. As I did my agonizing march to the door, I saw there was a group of at least six or seven employees already gathered outside the door, waiting for someone to open it and let everyone in.

On the one hand, I took it as a good sign. If that many people were waiting to be let in, odds were the buzzer had already been pressed a couple of times. On the other hand, that was no guarantee that the door would be opened anytime soon. Sometimes the only manager with the key to the door was on a forklift or something, getting a pallet down from the steel risers to stock the floor.

As I came up to join the group, I also knew I was going to be incapable of carrying on anything close to a conversation with anyone. Even mild chitchat, a quick “Hi, how are you?” was going to take more mental effort than I was able to spare from my complete and utter focus on keeping from soiling myself.

I leaned against the metal railing that ran alongside the exit and separated the walkway outside the door from the parking lot. I tried to focus on breathing. I tried to focus on staying calm. I tried to focus on not defecating in my pants. This lasted for approximately 1,000 years. It was early enough in the morning that no one really talked to me or paid any attention to me. Everyone was tired, half asleep, grumbling about how long it was taking anyone to come open the door. (Yeah, tell me about it!)

Finally, the universe saw fit to answer my anguished prayers, and the door opened. Everyone filed inside. I levitated off the ground and flew into the building. I had tunnel vision as I homed in on the bathroom like a heat-seeking missile locked in on its target. While everyone else was punching in at the time clock, I was dropping my pants and sitting my shaking ass down on the toilet seat. I didn’t even care that I was going to be clocking in late. I was thankful to God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost that I hadn’t had an accident in my pants upon entering my place of employment.

What resulted was the same nausea-ridden, forceful, painful expulsion from my body as the night of the cereal-stick and fish-water dream.

What was happening to me? Was this a stomach bug that I just couldn’t shake? It didn’t feel like it, but I had no other concept of what it could even be. Little did I know this was only the beginning of a disease I would fight for years. One that would land me in the hospital multiple times, put me through a ridiculous number of treatments and medications, and ultimately lead to major surgery to remove a considerable amount of my guts.  

To Be Continued in “Spilling My Guts: A Crohn’s Chronicle,” available to order here!