Ever since I learned that Elvis died with more than 30 lbs of feces in his body all I can think of is….. how???? Assuming a person is continuing to eat day after day, how can you continue to put things in and have nothing come out? I don’t understand why your body wouldn’t force you to expel what’s in your system (well before 30lbs) one way or another?
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Constipation is a slowing of the process of [peristalsis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristalsis), or the way the colon moves feces down the line to the exit in the same manner you’d empty a toothpaste tube. Dairy can lead to it, dehydration too, but about the most chronic cause is abuse of opioids. If peristalsis is not working, the backup can kill you.
I do know a thing or two about this (and you can skip to the **tl;dr**.). My surgeons and I had a scare, after a [sigmoid volvulus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvulus) and resulting colostomy, about Crohn’s Disease. Before the (emergency) surgery, my intestines had shut down, the aforementioned backup had perforated my bowel and I was literally turning green – I heard the surgeon down the hall screaming at the ER prep crew* to hurry up or they would be the ones explaining to my wife why she was now a widow. This is what I mean by *kill you,* ’cause that’s how close I came.
For a month, I was kept [NPO](https://nicespeechlady.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/HANDOUT-ABLE-NPO-has-been-Recommended-What-Does-this-Mean-1.pdf), fed via [hyperalimentation](https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/hyperalimentation), and wasn’t so much as passing gas. Luckily, after a few weeks of tense waiting, my innards cranked slowly back up, with no sign of Crohn’s (which is an immune disorder), and six months later I got a resection so I could poop like a human again, and not through my abdominal wall into a bag. It was, no contest, the worst year of my life. That was twenty-nine years ago.
**tl;dr** – butt humor is funny (even babies know this), but excretion is no joke. Never take your butthole for granted – life is *literally* shit when you’re not using it.
*[Edit] that’s the OR prep crew, not the ER.
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