HAWMC Day 7: Why I Named My Colon

I've started to write this particular post several times in the last couple months, and today is health activist's choice for HAWMC, which means I get to write about whatever I want. So, I figure now's the time to get it out there.

I've written several times about how I named my colon, but I never really specified why, and I think that's pretty important. The truth is that I didn't even know why I was doing it at first. I was going through a really rough flare and reading Are You My Guru: How Medicine, Medication & Madonna Saved My Life by Wendy Shanker (which you should totally pick up). I had read a review of the book on Feministing.com and it sounded really interesting, so I bought it on Amazon. At one point, Wendy visits some sort of non-western medicine practitioner (I can't remember the proper terminology, it was a while ago...) and is asked whether she's named her liver, the organ that was causing the most trouble for her at the time. She, of course, answered no. But then she did name it. And talked to it. I thought that sounded kind of fun.

So, I set about trying to find a good name for my colon. Eventually, it came to me. Myrtle. After the Hogwarts ghost that lives in the plumbing. Perfect. So, I introduced my friends and family to my newly-christened colon and before long it became common practice to ask me how Myrtle was feeling. Or when she would grumble, my friends would say "Oh! Myrtle's not happy, is she?"
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