I’ve been dealing with some pretty bad stomach issues since I was 18.  It set in pretty much instantly the second semester of my first year at college.  At first it was something of a joke.  My roommate and friend had what she later found out was IBS and I would always tease that I caught her bad stomach.  More often than not I was able to link the pain to alcohol, so I stopped drinking.

Then it evolved.  I wasn’t drinking but I was still getting some pretty bad pain.  It was so bad by my third year of college that I’d nearly failed out because I missed so much.  I had transferred to a school (my third transfer) and I thought my grades went with it so I had something to fall back on.  Nope.  I ended up with a .67 GPA at the end of my first semester in my third year.  I wasn’t on academic probation.  I got on the fast track to getting booted and had to plead my case to the dean.  Unfortunately, what I had wasn’t classified as a “legitimate” long-term illness by the school and it was at my professors’ will what happened with my grades.  Too bad for me I had teachers that didn’t give a shit and would so much as not even bother to return my emails.  Nice, huh?  Thankfully this wasn’t in the English department.

I ended up at my first gastroenterologist not too long after that but he was a bit of a hack.  More concerned with medicating than really treating.  Said if the Nexium worked then there was no need to go any further.  Of course not! Why would I want to find out what’s actually wrong with me when I could just take a pill to cover it up?  Sort of.  Right.  The endoscopy turned up nothing and since the Nexium helped, it was chalked up to some kind of acid reflux (although he’d already determined it wasn’t, no damage in my esophagus or stomach lining) and I went on my way.

Just before I left for England in 2006 I stopped taking it.  I was sick of taking it, figured I didn’t need it and I was right.  I didn’t have that insane pain anymore.  I had little spits of discomfort for the next couple of years and then just before I went to California back in October, I had another serious attack, like the kind I was getting that horrible semester in school.

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