Guts

Our campus has been thought of as a prison. a high school... a pre-school. a historic monument. All I see is junk food.

Every day we get our fruitcups, and our arnold palmers, but the meal is grab and go. One day it's wet tuna salad squished between starchy bread (one of my favorites) or today's delicacy, turkeyloaf and chips. Saturday was the first time our junk has been real junk. Homemade greasy pizza stuck slice upon slice, so I had three pieces.

That night was an early one for myself. My stomach burned with the delight of canadian bacon and string cheese. I curled in the fetal position, squeezed my aching stomach til sleep came. In the morning the pain was still there. I blamed the pizza, but still couldn't refuse three more pieces of cold grease-goodness over our prepared meal: chocolate muffins and oatmeal. bump that.

The pain grew that day, and again it was an early night. I woke at four in the morning, dazed by the blaring Radiohead that I'd fallen asleep by, and somehow all of my roommates refused to turn off. I turned down the music and stumbled to the water fountain. This didn't help. It took an hour for me to fall asleep, and when I woke this morning, I knew things weren't good.

Not wanting to miss the events of the day, I scheduled a doctor's appointment for this afternoon. A bumpy ride to Cedar Rapids for first aid training, and a bumpy ride back. I held my stomach in, joking that my appendix would burst like an alien from my "thorax," sending acid spew over the fourteen members in the fifteen seater van. Lucky Colin was crammed in the backseat.

The doctor came in with an assistant who smiled and said nothing. He was very kind, gently probing my gut, "does this hurt? does this hurt?" I pointed dead center, under the xiphoid process (geek points for the day), and he explained, "that's your stomach." whew.

"Where did you go to school? Was it far from home? Are you happy to be here in Vinton?" I could see where these questions were going. "You know... some people get very anxious and jittery when they are homesick, but it can manifest in the GI system."

Pizza, I said. I blame the pizza.

"Of course it could have been pizza, it's a change in diet, right?" I wanted to say yes. The pharmacy stayed open for bloated-stomach Americorps-kid, all the employees wore big smiles, but not the fake kind. How's the new town treating you, they asked. I hope you'll get better soon, they said. Maybe it was just the pizza?