Me and my stomach

[Plaidman]

I thought gastroenteritis, but it's lasting too long for that.

In anycase, look, my only suggestion? Drink lots of water. More then normal. With what your doing, your risking dehydration majory, and that isn't a good thing. Even if you explunge it all, every tiny bit helps. It really does.


cholera may also be it. That is deadly. But way too strange that you be the only one effected by it and not anyone as it's pretty contagious.

[Midnight12]

I agree have a GI done, my thoughts are there are ulcers that are irritating everything. Not just in the stomach but throughout your intestinal tract or diverticulitis. OR something happened to the bacteria that is supposed to be in your intestines and because its gone everything is now an issue. or the lining in the intestines is inflamed. But yes, mention this to your doctors that maybe something is inflamed. and that you need to have a camera gone through. which means no eating for the day before. But i'm not in the medical field so i have no clue and i hope the issue is found. Did removing your mother's gal bladder fix or help with her problem?

[tacohuman]

your symptoms sound almost exactly like what i experienced last year, and my issue turned out to be a non-functioning gallbladder.

[bean]

Well, today I felt... pretty much normal. Worked a full shift at another store, had a big lunch, got off work, had a taco dinner with lots of hot sauce, beans, rice, and just got home. Stomach feels just fine, a little gassy from the beans if anything, and all I've had in terms of meds today was a dose of Zofran around 10am.

But... while I was at work, I got a voicemail from the backup HR person in my own store (main HR person is on vacation - the main HR person is the one who's accused me of fraud). She left a polite, but very important message regarding my employment. Basically, she said that my call to the store manager before going to the ER the other day "Can be considered an FMLA triggering event" and she's sending me FMLA documents certified mail, if I return them ASAP "this will help protect your job". Unfortunately, she called at 3:50pm, and left the office at 4:00 (I went on lunch at 4:10).

Also, it would have been awfully nice of them to let me know I had been forced back into medical leave before I drove 63 minutes round trip to work at another store today (I was 3 hours into my shift when she called). And hey, they could have told the other store I wasn't supposed to work too. But I worked a full 8 hour shift.

On my way home I called my boss to ask him if I could just pick up the FMLA documents, since I have a dr's appointment tomorrow anyway, and it'd be nice to be able to get all the paperwork done at once so I can return to work ASAP. He basically said "I'm too busy to deal with you right now" and transferred me to the assistant store manager. Asst mgr knows documents have been mailed, but he said he's just as clueless as I am about the cryptic voicemail. He told me when HR person will be in and suggested I stop by then.

If the shit does hit the fan, the former store manager pulled some VERY illegal stuff with FMLA when I went to rehab a couple of years ago (it's a bit illegal to demote someone, cut them to part time, and reduce their pay for going to rehab on FMLA, right?), and he still works for the company, so I have a couple of aces if I really have to use them. Won't make me popular though.

[FreakyGeek]

Wow, as someone who has Crohn's disease, have you asked your GI (Gastro-Interologist, aka Gut doctor) about a blockage?
Also, I find that Fatty food (like a fast food meal) tend to make those sorts of bowel movements happen. With Berries and Bananas, neither have a lots of fiber to really 'hold themselves up' in your gut.
I know theres a powder you can get by perscription to help with the mucus in the stool, I was one it for ahwhile, it tasted nasty but it really worked.

About the blackage, after you have a larger meal, do you feel very bloated? Then suddenly have to go RIGHT NOW? A CT scan wont show much, but a Barium X-ray will.

Feel free to PM me if you have more questions that might be on the grosser side.

[MaggieTheCat]

Regarding FMLA -- I'm not sure if I understood everything in your last post, so correct any misinterpretations I'm reading. Also note that I dealt with a lot of FMLA issues in my last job, but that was in Wisconsin, and I'm not sure how local FMLA laws differ between Wisconsin and Texas. Federal FMLA laws should be the same in all states. Apologies in advance for the long post.

FMLA is something that all employers with more than a certain number of employees (something like 15, maybe) must offer to employees. To qualify for FMLA, an employee has to have been employed with the company for at least a year and have worked at least 1000 hours in that year. FMLA is not optional for employers to offer but is optional for employees to take. Employers MUST notify employees of FMLA if they feel that an event may qualify for FMLA. Even if an event ends up not qualifying for FMLA, if an employer feels that it may, they are required, by law, to explain FMLA to the employee and offer them documentation. This is probably why the HR person called you today to talk about it.

You don't have to take FMLA, although in your case it may be a good idea to get it as sort of a back-up in case you get really sick or need to go to the ER during your shift. It does not pay you anything (employers are not required to pay you during FMLA leave unless you request to use your own personal paid leave, if you have any) but it does protect you from termination/demotion/pay cuts/any kind of negative documentation due to attendance.

There are two types of FMLA: Leave and intermittent (those may not be the technical terms but that's what I remember them as.) Leave is for something in which you will be absent from work for an extended period of time but you and your doctors know (roughly) when you should be able to return to work permanently. The best example of a Leave is surgery. You have your gall bladder removed; FMLA covers the time you're off during the surgery and after the surgery for recovery. If your doctor thinks you should be off for 2 weeks after the surgery, you will (should) not incur any absences during that time while you're off work. You can return early from that leave if you feel you can handle it, but you can take the whole time off without repercussions from your employer.

Intermittent FMLA is for some on-going, long-term issue that an employee has in which they may need time off work periodically but it's hard or impossible to determine exactly when you'll need to be off. Examples of this would be, say, migraines. I actually had FMLA for my migraines at my last job. If I felt a migraine coming on, I could take FMLA to leave early to see my chiropractor or go home, if it was bad enough. If I had a migraine when I was supposed to work, I could essentially call in sick, but it wouldn't be considered an absence since it was covered by FMLA. This is the kind of FMLA you may be qualified for, since your condition is so unpredictable.

When you say "forced back into medical leave" is there something else you're referring to? If you're referring to the HR person's call regarding FMLA, you're not being forced into anything. If you fill out the paperwork she sent you and get it approved by a doctor, all it means is that the day you went to the ER, and any subsequent days you may have to take off for this particular issue, are covered by FMLA and you won't get any absences or write-ups for those days. This is, essentially, protecting your job, since if you don't get FMLA, any time you need to take off for this issue will go against whatever absence policy your employers enforce.

Please note that if you do get FMLA, especially intermittent FMLA, it's only for one issue and any other time you're ill for some other reason, you should not be using FMLA to take the time off. For example, if you get FMLA for your stomach issues but you twist your ankle and don't want to walk on it, you can't use FMLA to take a day off work for that. (not trying to imply that you'd do this, just wanted to clarify...we had a lot of people abuse the system at my last job. ) When you do call in for your FMLA-related issue(s) you will have to specifically say, "I am calling in due to my FMLA condition" or something similar to specify that it your absence FMLA-related.

Regarding getting demoted and a pay-cut while you're on FMLA leave, yes, that is illegal. As far as I remember, the company is not required to keep your exact position open but they are required to reinstate you into a position that has equal pay and hours available once your leave is over. That's not to say that your manager didn't demote you for FMLA but put the reason down as something else -- did he specifically tell you that FMLA was the cause of the demotion?

[bean]

I don't even have a primary care physician yet, much less a GI. I've been putting off getting a real doctor for too long - using urgent care when I've been sick (which up until recently, has been very rare).

I have an appointment with a PCP recommended by the hospital tomorrow. Turns out a friend of my mom's is a patient of another doctor working out of the same office and she's very happy with the staff, so that's some good news.

[bean]

Regarding getting demoted and a pay-cut while you're on FMLA leave, yes, that is illegal. As far as I remember, the company is not required to keep your exact position open but they are required to reinstate you into a position that has equal pay and hours available once your leave is over. That's not to say that your manager didn't demote you for FMLA but put the reason down as something else -- did he specifically tell you that FMLA was the cause of the demotion?

He did exactly that, yes. My pay was reduced to the starting rate of pay at the time, I was cut to 30 hours a week, and suddenly my shifts were midnight to 8am. I bitched to corporate HR about that after I got an eviction letter (couldn't pay my rent on what he cut me down to), wound up getting dragged into the store manager's office, SCREAMED at in front of every department manager in the store and in front of HR about how I stabbed him in the back by going over his head, and told me "Fine, you got your money back, you'll get back pay, and you're going to <x department>", which is the department I'm still in. I never did get my back pay, and screaming at me about my medical condition in front of half of the store was a huge HIPPA violation in itself. He had a bad temper, so glad he's out of the store. He never did apologize for the outburst, but a couple of weeks before he left the store he did pull me into his office and said my boss has said nothing but good things about me for quite some time and how he appreciated my work.

And you're pretty much spot on with the info, though you need 1,250 hours to qualify now. I have over 7,000 hours with the company, and it's a very big company (Fortune 500, over 40,000 employees in several countries, mostly in the US, and headquartered in my state). I've gotten several employee of the month awards, worked in 4 departments, and been with the company longer than 2 of my department managers and all but 1 of the front end supervisors. I bust my ass, and generally try to treat everyone with respect.

Anyway, I had a lot more typed up for this, but #1, it would definitely be moving toward fratching, which I don't want to do, and #2, with some of the wording my boss and the head HR lady have used, I'm fairly certain they're trying to find a way to get rid of me, so I need to start covering my ass.

[bean]

You know what's kinda funny, sad, odd, and weird all at the same time?

This forum has far, far, far fewer users than the one I posted my original message on (the one I copied/pasted to here). We probably have, what, a few hundred registered users here at the most?

The one I posted it on is my favorite forum - it's great if you're registered, but horrible if you're not due to ads, and you have to pay to register - somethingawful.com 's forums. They have over 142,000 registered users, and at this very moment (4:55 AM central), 2,862 users are logged in and actively reading the forums, with another 2,000 or so unregistered users reading.

I posted in their medical subforum, which is pretty much as it says.. you only post about medical issues in there, it's heavily moderated, and a lot of nurses, doctors, first responders, etc are in that particular subforum.

I've had 2 replies over there - one basically said "Food poisoning only lasts a day or two". Well yeah, no shit. The other was a lot more informative and suggested tests that I should ask my dr to have done.

But still.. 2 posts in 2 days there, we're on our 3rd page here.

[Rapscallion]

This forum has far, far, far fewer users than the one I posted my original message on (the one I copied/pasted to here). We probably have, what, a few hundred registered users here at the most?

We recently trimmed no-post-count inactive accounts and have nearly five thousand accounts on the records. However, there's about 1300 accounts that have logged in during the last thirty days.

Of note, though, is that I've been taken along the route of investigations about guts, and one thing I do know is that most of the gut complaints involve very similar symptoms, so it's possible the professionals are holding back in case of misdiagnosis?

Rapscallion

[bean]

I hate my biological clock.

I missed my dr's appointment. I've rescheduled, but to be honest, I doubt I'll wake up in time. And as of noon today, if I don't have something signed by doctors, I am out of work and marked not for rehire, and I've been told I might be facing charges over fraud.

So much for a Fortune 500 that's been on the Fortune Top 100 Companies To Work For list since its inception (and never below #15), right?

The lower end has been fine all day, even yesterday, after lots of greasy food both days. The emergency exit (puking) has been pretty busy for the past 8 hours or so, with quite a bit of blood.

[trailerparkmedic]

The emergency exit (puking) has been pretty busy for the past 8 hours or so, with quite a bit of blood.

Go see a doctor!! That is Not Good.

[Mikkel]

Go see a doctor!! That is Not Good.

"I didn't think you could die of ulcers either, but the surgeons says holes in your body with blood pouring out are the same whether they're on the inside or outside, so I guess you can." Louis McMaster Bujold; The Warriors Apprentice

No, that's definitely not good, see a doctor, don't wait till Monday!

[bean]

Go see a doctor!! That is Not Good.

Uhm, perhaps you guys missed the part where I was in the ER for this...

[Mikkel]

Uhm, perhaps you guys missed the part where I was in the ER for this...

But you still have a hole in you with blood running out. The Zofran should work by emptying your stomach faster, or so my oncologist tell me, if you still throw up there must be quite a bit of blood. At least call an ER or your own doctor and ask what they'll recommend. Probably they will just check if you are getting anaemic and perhaps get you something to supplement the Zofran.