Arjun Patel, 29, died last November in his suburban Pittsburgh home, according to the Tribune-Review. And officials say his death was caused by too much of an over-the-counter medication aimed at treating diarrhea.

Full story here.

Look, this is scary. If there’s something I think we can all agree on, it’s that curing diarrhea is an all-hands on deck matter. It's not like I have diarrhea any more than any other person, it's just that I would go above and beyond to nuke my diarrhea and make sure it never comes back. This isn’t like a pop one pill, cross your fingers and hope for the best thing. This is like a pop as many pills, and drop as many hydrogen bombs as you need until your butt stops exploding with poo type of thing. It’s like Advil. If whatever hurts still hurts, then I’m going to take more Advil. If I’m still shitting, then I’m going to take more pills until I stop shitting.

There’s just no middle ground with diarrhea. You either don’t have it, which means you’re fine- or you do have it, which means that all of life must be put on hold so that you don’t poop your pants in public. Diarrhea isn’t even like pooping your pants in public. I believe that most people can probably poop their pants in public, and with some semblance of strategy and composure, can get away with it without anyone knowing. The same cannot be said of diarrhea. If you diarrhea yourself, everybody’s gonna know. That’s why the world has to stop. I’m not just going to take the recommended amount and hope that I don’t brand myself as the diarrhea guy forever, no I’ve got take matters into my own hands and put a figurative cork in this thing.

As an example of this desperate situation at play, allow me, dear reader, to spin you a tale of a personal foray into the war zone of controlling your bodily functions. Years ago, I was working in a school (that’s right, I influenced children) and school got cancelled for two days. That sounds insane but it was true. I was facing a two-day snow day and my at the time girlfriend asked/requested/ordered me to come get snowed in at her place. To be fair, getting snowed in together for two days sounded like kind of a fun, romantic thing and so I was fully onboard. The problem was: I was, for some reason, experiencing the most rancid farts of my life. I’m sorry dear reader, I know that’s not something you want to hear, but it’s true. It smelled like I had eaten a rotting corpse and was slowly cleansing my body of its fumes one fart at a time. To be absolutely clear, these were not farts that you can hide under covers, febreze, a convenient draft through an open window, bathroom doors, or even industrial bleach. To be absolutely clear, this was the diarhheaing your pants of farts. I also think that my ex and I were in the middle of the unspoken “who’s going to fart first” battle that most couples wage silently, but, for some reason, I decide to loudly announce at the beginning of every relationship. *That’s a separate issue that I’m addressing on my own and won’t speak of again in this story.

Basically I liked this girl a lot and was in a bit of a pickle in that I was positive that if I got snowed in with her for two days, I would 1. fart eventually, every man breaks. 2. she would break up with me because of said fart. 3. I would then be snowed in with someone who broke up with over my rancid farts, still farting. That’s a nightmare scenario any way you put it.

So I did what any sane person in that situation would do. No, I did not send my ex girlfriend a text saying that I was feeling sick and wouldn’t be able to get snowed in with her. No, I had placed her way too high up on a personal pedestal to pull something like that. I went to the nearest grocery story and bought several packages of GasX, an anti-flatulence pill. The instructions told me take one a day. Now, I don’t remember perfectly, but I think I ate most of that package in a sitting. The stakes were too high. I’m pretty sure I snorted some of those pills. Just sitting in my room in my own, doing towering lines of GasX shouting, “Please don’t make do another!” as I cried blood and farted death. I don’t know how true all of those details are, but you get the point. This was the hail mary of all hail marys, and it fucking worked. I got snowed in, didn’t fart and never took GasX again.

Yes that’s a happy ending to what could have been a sad story, but that, my friends, is why this is so scary. It’s easy to imagine a situation in which you take 16 times the recommended dosage of anti-diarrhea meds. You think that the battle of who farts first is bad? Wait until you wage the battle to see who poops first (everybody’s got a story about this). You think that’s bad? Well then imagine that with exploding diarrhea. That’s a mayday situation. It’s taken three years but I can basically admit that I may have overthought a fair amount of my GasX situation, but I’m not overthinking the diarrhea thing. If you diarrhea on someone in the middle of a winter storm with no escape for 48 hours, they’re going to break up with you. That relationship could be the most beautiful thing in the world and it would be over. Shitting yourself on your own time is one thing, this is another.

It’s also important to note that this guy may have not been taking this medication for diarrhea:

Loperamide, the active ingredient in anti-diarrhea medications such as Imodium A-D, is sometimes called the “poor man’s methadone,” The Washington Post reported.

That’s because high doses of the drug can induce a mild high and soothe withdrawal symptoms for drugs such as morphine or heroin, the newspaper said in January.

Well fuck, I don’t know why anti-diarrhea medication has to make you feel like you’re taking heroin. Just take that stuff out and stop me from shitting all over myself. That’ll do.

P.S. One of the great things about blogging is I learn something new every day. Today I learned how to spell ‘diarrhea’. Thanks for college, Grandpa!