Lanural

I hadn't pooped in 14 days. I'd been on Miralax every morning for 4 years. Senna at night for the last 3. Up to 4 pills. I had been to 4 gastroenterologists, tried 31 different things, and the only thing any of them had ever told me was "keep taking the Miralax, it's safe forever." On a Tuesday in April, after 14 days without a single bowel movement — after taking enough laxatives to drop a horse

I hadn't pooped in 14 days. I'd been on Miralax every morning for 4 years. Senna at night for the last 3. Up to 4 pills. I had been to 4 gastroenterologists, tried 31 different things, and the only thing any of them had ever told me was "keep taking the Miralax, it's safe forever." On a Tuesday in April, after 14 days without a single bowel movement — after taking enough laxatives to drop a horse

My sister died from constipation. Read that again. I know exactly how it sounds. People hear it and something almost smiles in them. Constipation. Nobody dies from that. I believed the very same thing. Right up until I watched it take the person I'd known longest in this world. Her name was Ruth. She was my big sister. She was 73 years old. And she died of the one thing every doctor we ever sat in

I drove myself to the emergency room at five in the morning because I hadn't been able to go to the bathroom in nine days. I was alone in the car. I'm alone in the house, too. My husband Ed passed five years ago. So when the cramping got so bad in that hospital parking lot that I couldn't breathe through it, and the edges of everything started to go gray, the thought I had wasn't "help me." It was

My sister died from constipation. Read that again. I know exactly how it sounds. People hear it and something almost smiles in them. Constipation. Nobody dies from that. I believed the very same thing. Right up until I watched it take the person I'd known longest in this world. Her name was Ruth. She was my big sister. She was 73 years old. And she died of the one thing every doctor we ever sat in

I hadn't pooped in 14 days. I'd been on Miralax every morning for 4 years. Senna at night for the last 3. Up to 4 pills. I had been to 4 gastroenterologists, tried 31 different things, and the only thing any of them had ever told me was "keep taking the Miralax, it's safe forever." On a Tuesday in April, after 14 days without a single bowel movement — after taking enough laxatives to drop a horse

My gastroenterologist looked at my CT scan, took off his glasses, and said six words I'll never forget. "Your colon is dying." "You're heading for a stoma bag." I sat in that blue chair across from his desk and just stared at him. I genuinely thought he was joking. He wasn't. He pointed at the CT scan on his monitor, at the dark mass curled up inside my colon, and explained what I was looking at.

I hadn't pooped in 14 days. I'd been on Miralax every morning for 4 years. Senna at night for the last 3. Up to 4 pills. I had been to 4 gastroenterologists, tried 31 different things, and the only thing any of them had ever told me was "keep taking the Miralax, it's safe forever." On a Tuesday in April, after 14 days without a single bowel movement — after taking enough laxatives to drop a horse