Al Roker pooping his pants at the White House made the rounds yesterday because it’s pretty hilarious when someone shits their pants. The only thing that even comes close to being in the same realm of funny is a dog riding a horse. Other feelings being expressed over Roker’s public shart share: Sadness, bewilderment, exhilaration, discomfort, confusion, and all the reaction gifs of people doing double takes or barfing.
Regardless of what you thought about Al Roker’s drunk uncle ramblings on Dateline, the reason the grown man sharted in his drawers at the WHITE HOUSE was because he’s had gastric bypass surgery — an intense process that removes and rearranges your healthy digestive system so that you can’t properly process/retain/eat food. For people who undergo this traumatic surgery, pooping their pants is often a concern.
“When you have a bypass and your bowels [have] been reconstructed, you think you’re pretty safe,” Roker told Dateline‘s Nancy Snyderman (you can watch the video on TMZ).
“And I probably went off and ate something I wasn’t supposed to. And as I’m walking to the press room … I gotta pass a little gas here. I’m walking by myself. Who’s gonna know? Only a little something extra came out,” the news anchor explains.
“You pooped in your pants,” Snyderman says.
“I pooped my pants. Not horribly, but enough that I knew,” Roker answers. Pretty sure any amount that you shit your pants would put you safely in the “horribly” category of shitting your pants.
Snyderman interjects that it’s a “common side effect of the surgery.”
Which, it is. Other common side effects? According to Linda Bacon [Warning: PDF!] in Health at Every Size:
“Complications” are likely. A few other possible complications that the ads usually forget to mention, as compiled by Dr. Paul Ernsberger and Sandy Swarzc: adhesions and polyps, massive scar tissue, advanced aging, anemia, arthritis, blackouts/fainting, bloating, body secretions (odor like rotten meat), bowel/fecal impaction, cancer (of the stomach, esophagus, pancreas, and bowel), chest pain from vomiting, circulation impairment, cold intolerance, constipation, depression, diarrhea, digestive impairment due to heavy mucus, digestive irregularities, diverticulitis, drainage problems at incision, early onset of diabetes, early onset of hypertension, electrolyte imbalance, erosion of tooth enamel, excessive dry skin, excessive stomach acid, esophageal contractions, esophageal erosion and scarring, feeling ill, gallbladder distress, gynecological complications, hair loss, hemorrhoids, hernia, hormone imbalances, impaired mobility, infection from leakage into body cavities (peritonitis), infertility, intestinal atrophy, intestinal gas, involuntary anorexia, irregular body fat distribution (lumpy body), iron deficiency, kidney impairment and failure, liver impairment and failure, loss of energy, loss of muscle control, loss of skin integrity, low hemoglobin, lowered immunity and increased susceptibility to illnesses, malfunction of the pituitary gland, muscle cramps, nausea, neural tube defects in your children, neurological impairment (nerve and brain damage), osteoporosis, pancreas impairment, pain along the left side, pain on digestion, pain on evacuation, peeling of fingernails, potassium loss, pulmonary embolus, putrid breath and stomach odor, rectal bleeding, shrinking of intestines, stomach pain, sleep irregularities, suicidal thoughts, thyroid malfunction, urinary tract infection, vitamin and mineral deficiency, vitamin and mineral malabsorption, violent hiccups that persist daily, vomiting from blockage, vomiting from drinking too fast, vomiting from eating too fast, vomiting from eating too much (more than 2 ounces) . . . and best of all—weight regain.
Even the developer of gastric bypass, Dr. Edward Mason, has his doubts about it:
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