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It can happen the instant you swallow the offending food, it may hit you hours later, or it may not happen at all. You might go months thinking you're in the clear, and then one day, one tiny bite of ice cream does you in. It gives the word "crapshoot" a whole new meaning.

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It's a rocky road in multiple ways, is what I'm saying.

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I didn't think I would experience dumping syndrome because I had the less severe of the surgical options -- gastric sleeve surgery as opposed to a gastric bypass. That means that instead of reducing my stomach to the size of a cupcake, it was reduced to the size of three cupcakes (God, even thinking about cupcakes is making me queasy). In theory, that should mean the food I eat is processed more before it hits my intestines, reducing my risk of dumping syndrome. Boy howdy, I was ... not correct about that. A few days ago, I was woken up in the middle of the night by the foreboding stabs of intense stomach cramps, and knew I could look forward to spending the rest of my morning on the toilet, with no idea what I had eaten that caused it.

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That's really important, because the only way to prevent it is to remember what foods have triggered it in the past. Basically, you spend your life making sure you're never too far from a restroom, never knowing when you'll be possessed by the shit demon. You hope and pray that it doesn't happen anywhere important, like when poor Al Roker shat his pants at the White House.