Hi everyone! Beautiful, warm weather is here to stay in PA and it’s made me much less motivated to write anything. It’s been refreshing to take walks outside without freezing and I can finally make the transition from hot coffee back to my true love, iced coffee. I’m currently working on my piece, “Holy Shit: Life With IBS” which is timely because I’ve been struggling with my GI tract more than usual recently due to stress and a poor sleep schedule. For those who don’t know what IBS is, it stands for Irritable Bowel syndrome and is a chronic disorder which causes abdominal pain, bloating, and other digestive issues. Essentially, having IBS means that I survive via a combination of using heating pads, eating Tums as if they were snacks, and avoiding all products with gluten and dairy in them. For lack of a better phrase, IBS is a real pain in the ass. The COVID-19 lockdown ruined countless things for me but has been my saving grace during intense flare-up days. I can’t exactly lug my bulky heating pad to campus under normal circumstances and have genuinely enjoyed chilling on my couch with it while making sure that my intestines don’t explode. Writing this piece has been fun but dealing with this illness on a daily basis definitely isn’t. I had a flare-up today and am genuinely exhausted. I’m set on the idea that my first goal in life is to become an undergraduate professor and the second is to receive a stomach and intestinal transplant.
Kenzie Myer: Blog Post #3
