#aching tummies

I think I discovered why it's called a belly 'button'.

I've been chilling for a bit. Busy, but not in a 'stress-y—get it done' kinda way. Haven't been eating much, and 'cuz of that, my tum has been neutral, decent. I also haven't had much time to kink or play with my stomach 'cuz by the time I'm in bed, I've been too tired to do any of that, and when I wake up. I'm usually going somewhere. This was probably the longest stretch of time where my tum wasn't upset.

I finally found a few minutes to play with my tummy for a bit. Went to grab something to maybe probe around my navel. All I could grab was a ballpoint pen. I usually avoid pens, because they're too thick to do much. I've got one of those very puckered navels, so there isn't much space to draw circles or anything, It was all I had so I decided to at least try it.

It was a clicker pen. Something with a blunt/fat tip. I usually prefer fine-tip...but I think this was one of those throw away consolation things—it was a dollar store click pen, 0.9mm or something...so not something I'd ever buy for myself or write with,

I pushed the non-clicked pen deep, and then hit the clicker to have the pen nib jab further.

I saw stars. I guess I found the knot in my navel or something, and having the pen already jabbing into it, followed by the extra intrusion of the pen nib made me see stars.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long. I poked around in my navel for a while, aiming the nib at different things before clicking the pen. Guess I disturbed something and triggered the 'button' thing of my belly 'button' because I ended up dashing to the washroom with an achy, upset tummy.

My stomach has felt unsettled ever since, and anything I consume is going straight through me without really digesting much, so I guess my belly 'button' is also known as the “flush system” button or something.

Omg the pressure is so low rn😮‍💨🥴🤩 (inflation plus indigestion)

You're drawn to my bedroom by some pitiful whimpers. You peer into the room.

I'm laying on my bed, shirt hiked up, smooth skin of my belly revealed. My hands hover over my tummy, pulling away every so often as I whimper.

My bare tummy is a rare sight—especially lately. Keeping up with 3 different part-time jobs, full time student course loads, and volunteering has meant that I'm lucky to clock 2 hours of actual sleep a night, and the amount of nights I spend crashing at a friend's place rather than coming home to you means that we haven't seen much of each other in the last few months. The rare occasions we're both home, you're likely to find me deeply asleep, utterly exhausted by life.

My bare tummy has been a rare sight, but its current state is even rarer. With my crazy schedule, meal-times have become basically non-existent. I don't sit down for full meals anymore. I don't pack full lunches. I pack finger foods. Grape tomato, goldfish crackers, juice boxes, etc. And the fact that it takes me three days to finish the cup-sized container of any of this tells you that I haven't been eating much at all. The rare occasions that you find me home, you're usually peeling me off the floor or otherwise putting me to bed. You've examined to your heart's content, tracking the progression of my ribs becoming more prominent. Unfortunately, I've always been too exhausted to react, and kinking alone lost its appeal for you.

My tummy is rounded, but on my newly trim form, it doesn't look all that distended. Still, you've seen my new figure and know that the gentle round curve beneath my ribs isn't as gentle as it appears.

“Ugh...nnngh...owww...” I'm a mess of whimpers, whines, and moans.

“Hm? Ugh...babe?” I finally clue into your presence, locking onto your figure with teary eyes. “Nnngh...m-my tummy hurts. Ugh...h-help...please?” I beg.

My hands hover over my tummy, barely touching, and pulling away quickly.

“Uuugh...nnngh...s-so full. Ugh...'m so full...m-my stomach doesn't even growl anymore.” I mutter with a pout. “Ugh...t-too full. N-Not movin'...” I explain, gesturing at my achingly distended gut.

My stomach is rock hard under your palm. Zero give—like a basketball. Stomach, duodenum, intestines—everything is packed full, stretched around a mass of food—too densely packed to allow my organs to convulse or digest.

“Oww!” I writhe on the bed, but even that amount of jostling doesn't trigger anything. My tum's too overloaded—too crammed with food. Hopelessly packed.

“Why'd ya do this to yerself?” You ask, trying to reach over to palm at my tummy again. I'm squirming away from your touch, even gentle pressure feeling crazy painful on my overstretched tum.

“Nnngh...hungry. Didn't even eat that much...tum just...ugh...it shrank.” I hiss. “Ugh...d-damn it—Digest already!” I snarl, slamming my fist on my tummy. You watch—zero give, like trying to punch a firmly blown up balloon. My tum is rock hard. My fist bounces off of it, not even sinking in anywhere. I whimper as the force of the failed punch reverberates through my packed gut.

There's no gas in there. Not enough liquid or room to even slosh. It's so hopelessly packed with solid food that digestion just is not going to happen.

My stomach has been constantly gurgling and rumbling literally non-stop all day. Eggs were on sale where I was, so I had a lot of eggs. Trying to figure out what I can cook with them, as well as what I can pack for breakfast and lunches resulted in me scouring the internet.

Frittatas? Egg bites? Egg muffins? Whatever you call 'em, I made a bunch of those. They were delicious, but here's my problem: I normally do not eat much protein. My poor tummy was not expecting so much protein. It received the egg muffins and just sorta churned it up like “what do?” and I guess my intestines thought the same thing. It wasn't prepared to digest all that protein. I only had two for breakfast, and I could feel them sitting heavy in my intestines and bloating up my stomach the whole day. Filling, at least I wasn't hungry...but my guts were gurgling and growling because all that egg wasn't going quietly.

I had a latte from the campus coffee house. I know, what was I thinking, ordering a latte when I'm stressed to the nines over the semester, right? But well, I've drank so much bitter coffee in the last month that the thought of ordering a mocha, or an espresso, or even regular coffee makes me want to throw up. 100%, flavour fatigue for the flavor of coffee. So I started ordering matcha lattes and dumping ridiculous amounts of honey into it—because warm, honeyed milk is delightful...if your stomach can handle dairy.

Protein + dairy...two things already picking a fight with my guts and generating lots of gas and lots of gurgles.

Then comes lunchtime. I had 50 minutes between classes, and wasn't feeling all that hungry, but our next class was a 4 hour lab...so...if I didn't eat between classes, it'd be a good 5, almost 6 hours before I'd be able to get any food in my tummy, and I didn't want to get hungry in the middle of the lab. So I bought lunch, which also came with a lovely bottle of Coca-Cola—my favorite.

So, heading into the 4 hour lab class, we've got protein, dairy, and carbonation absolutely wrecking my guts. So many gurgles. I was so embarrassed.

We get a break partway through the lab class, and I ended up literally running to the washroom and desperately trying to pass the mess in my guts. I only got a little out before I had to wrap up and return to class, the pressure only having gone down slightly, but my guts still being ridiculously noisy because it's not done yet and has decided nothing is going to be digested. We usually get two or three 10 min breaks in our lab class. We had two today and I spent both desperately trying to reduce the upset in my guts.

After classes, I stayed on-campus for another 4 hours to try to get some homework done. My guts were rumbling and gurgling the whole time. I felt like I had a Jacuzzi in my guts. I ended up using the washroom literally three times in those four hours, stomach desperately trying to eliminate the protein it wasn't ready for, and all that carbonation and dairy—all the undigestibles.

I ended up leaving campus, barely having done any homework. My stomach and other things are achingly sore. My stomach's still ridiculously unsettled. It's still gurgling loudly. My intestines are in knots, refusing to digest the mess. I've used the washroom literally twice since leaving campus, and my guts still feel ridiculously unsettled. It's like my intestines are 'shivering'--they're shaking, churning, twitching, and full of a ridiculous amount of rumbles.

Since coming back home, I no longer have to be worried about making noises or being gross in public. Shucking off my jeans was a relief, but the freedom from the confines of my waistband and belt have just set my intestines off and the rumbles literally make me feel like I'm riding a galloping horse or something. Since I'm no longer in public, I'm hyper-aware of the gas pains and pressure in my stomach, and I've been belching unintentionally as my body relaxes and lets it escape. I guess I'm too proud or shy to burp in public. Damn, the pressure in my tum is really uncomfortable.

Today was pretty hectic. I spent the day running errands. Got home late, was hungry, and was too exhausted to cook. I made some homemade pickles with some extra cucumbers I had in the fridge. Asian-style quick-pickling with rice-wine vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil. I overshot a bit with the vinegar, so the pickles were a bit too sour for my liking, but it was intended to just use up leftover cucumber, so I didn't care too much. Too lazy to bother with cooking a proper dinner, I ate a small side-dish of these pickles, and then remembered partway through that I still had a full thermos with a latte in it. I'd bought it hours earlier, but it was too hot to drink at the time. Knowing that I wanted to be up late to work on assignments, I decided to drink the latte at that point. Latte—mostly milk...joined the acidic pickle mix in my tummy.

The pickles went down about 4 hours ago, and I only just finished the latte 2 hours ago. My stomach has been rumbling intensely for the last 3 hours. It's ridiculously loud. I could hear them loud and clear as-is, but I decided to try putting my stethoscope on it, to see if I could reach a new depth of sound or something. What I got was sore ears. The rumbles were so ridiculously loud over the stethoscope.

The thing about the rumbles is that they are hefty. I can feel the rumbling quaking in my intestines when the sound hits. Literally, my guts feel like jelly, shaking and rumbling as whatever's going on ripples through my guts.

Despite the deep, drawn out rumbles, nothing hurts, and there's zero bathroom urgency. Zero gas from either end either, so it's just loud for the sake of being loud right now?

I'm pretty sure my stomach has never been this audible, or this loud...ever. The noises are embarrassingly loud, and every growl/gurgle lasts at least 2 or 3 seconds...doesn't sound impressive, when put like that, but actually try timing a 2-3 second constant rumble. Anyone in the same room will have zero trouble hearing my stomach growling and rumbling. And the sounds legit sound beyond unsettled. If I heard these noises from someone else, 100% would believe that the person is undergoing the stomach ache to end all stomach aches...but...at least for now, nothing's super painful. There's some slight discomfort, and I'm fairly certain that I'm in for a nasty ache within a few hours...but for now, just ridiculously loud growls and grumbles.

Phew. Haven't been so “stuffed” in a long time.

I got off a late shift and got “home” close to 11PM. Took a shower, and threw a bunch of veggies from the fridge into a large pot for some ramen. Asian greens, frozen veggie medley, some fishball and frozen tofu, all into the pot with the seasoning packet. When things came up to a boil, I tossed the noodles in. Once it was ready, I began eating. Settling down for dinner at midnight. Cool.

Starting to wonder if my stomach has an 'Hours of Operation' or something. It definitely isn't midnight.

I was sitting at the table, doing my homework, and eating my dinner. I got about halfway through the pot before my stomach started to feel uncomfortable. Odd, because it wasn't a large pot or anything, I've eaten that amount before. Deciding that a change in position was in order, I set the ramen aside, thinking I'd give myself a bit of a break to digest some and then finish it in a moment. I took my laptop to my bedroom, intending on lounging around on my bed while I continued to plug away at homework assignments.

The second I sat down on the bed, 'uncomfortable' turned into full-blown “packed completely full—no room, no give! Gonna bust!” I guess the bed is more plush than the kitchen chair, so maybe my digestive organs were more compressed with me sitting in the bed than in a chair?

The change was like flipping a switch. I legit felt stuffed and very, very, very sick. Tears came quickly because my stomach felt ridiculously stretched, achy, and sick.

I ended up dumping what was left of my dinner, knowing that there was zero way it'd fit in my tummy.

I spent more time doing homework and eventually fell asleep on my computer. In bed, at least.

I woke up 7 hours later, and my stomach still felt full, achy, distended—like nothing had happened in those 7 hours. So I guess hours of operation don't include 1AM-8AM. I thought that maybe getting some pressure on my tummy would be good, so I lay face down on the bed, covers bunched up under me to provide constant pressure on my tummy.

Big mistake. Stuff kept trying to come up. I swallowed it back, every time...but yeah, pressure on my tummy was gonna result in a big mess.

I didn't end up making a mess. I just lay there, needing that pressure on my achy tum, but also sitting up every 3 minutes to swallow back whatever was trying to come up.

I don't know why I was so ridiculously stuffed. I didn't prepare any more food than what I normally eat, and I was plenty hungry after working all day. My poor stomach just refused to move anything along, I guess.