Surprisingly, It Doesn't Take Long For Muscles to Forget Everything They Know About Working.

After my surgery, I took it easy on my "core". You know, I cut back on all those P90X workouts and spinning classes and whatever other cliche workout routines exist these days. With five cuts through my abdomen and a newly crotchet'd colon, I did NOT want to risk bursting any seams.

At my post-op appointment on August 10th, my doctor told me to keep taking things easy for at least another week. No workouts. No stretches. No lifting more than 10 pounds at a time. Plenty of resting.

So here I am, eleven days later and I figure it's safe to start putting my ripped core to good use. Nothing fancy. Just using my straight up 6-pack to launch myself out of bed/ off the couch, instead of rolling off the edge like an inchworm.

This is where the sadness happens.


What little stomach muscles I had before the surgery are fucking loooong gone.

Not only do I not have ANY working muscles in my abdomen, but everything is still sore. Which pretty much means I'm just going to remain in this comatose-type existence until I have to use my Medic-Alert or Jitterbug to call for help.


And adding insult to injury, my colon is a whole other set of lazy problems.

For the first three weeks after my surgery, I was on a low-fiber diet. For those of you who don't know, fiber is what makes you poop. If you're not eating it, you're not pooping. Which is exactly what my doctors wanted: plenty of "alone time" for the resection to heal. Only now, we're on week four since my surgery and my colon has not only been sliced and diced, but it's completely zoned the fuck out on what it's supposed to do. So I get the feeling like "Oh my God, Yes! I need to go poop!!" and I run to the toilet and nothing happens. Do you know how hard it is not being able to get your butt to work??

Because I had a resection, and the muscles and nerves were actually CUT through, it takes a while for things to start working like normal again. They need to be retrained. They need to learn how to "work things out." Unfortunately, I'm no ass trainer and it's getting pretty frustrating sitting on a toilet, feeling like I'm doing the work with no results. My stomach is holding up its end of the deal, and my butt is like "I like turtles."

I've given up on trying to look human.

Because of this backside laziness, I've had to bring out the big guns:
-Prunes
-Cherry tomatoes
-Apples
-Benefiber

I'm still chugging the Senokot/ Miralax like it's a $1 cocktail at Happy Hour. Which makes for a pretty eventful afternoon when I'm at the bank and all of a sudden I feel everything in my stomach drop straight to my butthole and then I have to Mario Andretti myself home before I poop all over my fucking car.


What's the lesson in all this? Muscles are dumb and forgetful. And also, you shouldn't leave the house when you're power-loaded on laxatives.