Breaking the silence / das Schweigen brechen:
I’m kind of stuck in a paradox, since they constricted my belly at a surgery, when I was 5 years old. I am suffering all the time, but every time I tell about it, they think it’s something that can heel. The truth is, this constriction is so strong, that I almost killed myself because this mutilated belly forces me to behave very strange and people think this strange behaving person is me, that this caricature of a human being is my personality. That I just like it that way.
I resign and give up. I will never work as Architect (or as employee, where sitting all day is required, again, until this artificial shortened belly-wall gets examined and repaired / restored. I have been good at this profession and it is my passion. I proofed, that I could work in that domain, as I could work in many other professions.
The „Normal“ Phase – Living with the bellyconstriction
The only problem is: this belly, especially the large intestine can‘t do his work right in this “cramped” belly. Especially when I am sitting all day long, I get various symptoms like hurting belly, #strangefatigue and #uveitis,…
I found a way to trick the miniature belly and to make the guts function, even while sitting and this trick is keeping a rigid low volume diet especially on the working = sitting days.
Rigid Diet: no sugar / alcohol at all (always), Something that passes smoothly through the belly for breakfast like Polenta & Coffee, strictly vegetarian meal for lunch and nothing too heavy for dinner.
I found out, that when I keep this rigid diet my digestion kind of works. This knowledge was my chance in the last 4 years, to show, that I can work and what I am able to do with a functioning digestion.
If I don’t keep the diet, I get very very sleepy after each meal and my brain doesn’t work properly and I would have to stand up and move around and wait, but that is not possible having a sitting job. If I don’t keep the low alcohol and low sugar diet, I get grave uveitis, which is an inflammation of the eyes. (I’ve got treated for uveitis with expensive medication from 2007-2018). When I don‘t have a sitting job, I can drink alcohol but the uveitis always looms and the veils in the eyes get stronger when, the digestion is not working properly.
I always have to take care that the guts are not too full. When they are full they compress the bladder constantly for a certain time or till I take a shit. So the bladder is very small for some hours. I pissed myself very often from childhood on. I avoided events, excursions, etc., where a normal bladder is afforded, which I didn’t have (actually it is normal, when not compressed). For years now I am aware of the shared space and I know, when the belly is full, I sometimes have to go every 5 minutes for a while. I am mostly with people who respect this and I don‘t blame myself anymore for this handicap.
Every night I wake up once at 3, 4 or 5 a.m. cause my digestion comes to an hold. I have dry eyes, dry mouth, I feel the traffic jam in the large intestine like an internal ring at the height of the navel thats where my colon ascendens crosses from right to left, because the liver is so low. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes its just very uncomfortable. I drink a glass of water, take a piss, and move around to start the digestion again.
What I described above, is my life in the so called „Normal Phase“, but the belly-system can snap or switch:
The Bowel Switch #bowelswitch
The belly-system can snap. There is no psychic trigger and it cannot be undone quickly. After the system snapped, it takes half a year (14 month this time) of suffering and liquid feeding and pain pain pain and sleeplessness, weight loss and weight gain till the old system and order of the guts is been established again.
I stopped talking to doctors about my „normal“ problems in the „normal“ phase, cause it made no sense to whine about things, that are always there and they don‘t understand. And really I know what they tell me: here are some globuli, it is psychic, you have to trust, this symptoms have no organic cause, you try to hard, you don‘t even try, …
So I only went to the doctors in the painful phase after the “bowel-switch”. Each time they looked at me with great eyes and made some standard-examinations but thought after they found nothing, that I am mentally ill and should not occupy a bed in the hospital or waist money. And they didn‘t look further.
These incident that I named #bowelswitch happened to me at least 3 times in my life: 1988, 1996, 2019.
I have to say, that in the last „normal“ phase of 23 years, I almost forgot how ugly this other side of the coin, this insane phase following the #bowelswitch is. I had hard times in these “normal”-phase-years, I almost got blind with #uveitis. Couldn’t read first with one and then with the other eye. They talked about cutting and clearing the eyeballs out. … This was all nothing, compared to the pain and the ugly feelings when your guts get choked by this constriction for months and intestinal flow is interrupted and you sweat, you can‘t sleep and you try to make yourself heard and nobody is listening or taking you serious, till they treat you as a simulator and send you home and tell you to come back, when it is bad again…
I went to the Chirugie at the LKH Graz twice in December 2019. It is not easy to get a hospital bed there. I went there to get the laparoscopy done. They made some examinations (same as 1996) very thoroughly, but they didn‘t listen to me. I said, that my abdominal wall is constricted internally. That is what I feel every day and, that my guts snapped in August 24th 2019 and therefore it cannot be a problem (inflammation, allergy,…) in the organs, because they worked fine till the day before.
It took several months of suffering, till I could get a bed at the hospital, where this laparoscopy should be performed. It also took a while to get all the documents, to get the permission to this surgery.
I did not know before, that I had to convince every single nurse and her dog over and over again, to get this belly investigation. The day that was planned for the laparoscopy, the surgeon in charge said: „Herr Promitzer, ich operier‘ Sie sicher nicht!“ – Mr. Promitzer, I don‘t do this laparoscopy, for sure!
Later the head of the clinic took over. I was frightened, that they won‘t make the laparoscopy, which I hoped for in the last painful 3 months. So I only told him about the symptoms and tried to appear very calm and not psychotic.
I didn‘t dare to talk about my reasonable suspicion, that I have been mutilated when I was 5 years old, cause I didn‘t want to risk being rejected again and I wanted this laparoscopy to be performed.
They sent me home without this laparoscopic exploration with symptoms, they didn’t believe to be serious or of physical origin. – I was desperate. I quit my job as office manager and chief designer at an Architectural office (I finished everything properly) and waited, till the organs in the belly went back to „normal“. Now, March 23rd, I can say I am back to „normal“. (Actually, I was far from „normal, back then. The large intestine found it’s functioning position at October 31st 2020 while I took I walk.
And now November 2020, I tell my story and I get this laparoscopy and I get my belly restored and I will never suffer in silence again. – I swore it, to the 5 year old boy, who didn‘t know, why suddenly life was hurtful and ugly to him and sicknesses never heeled and he cried after meals and cried in front of the class and pissed himself and became shyer and shyer until he didn’t almost speak anymore and became the strange Konrad.
