Carried: Ileocecal Valve Problems (Leading to back-flow of fecal matter from the large…)

It runs as a refusal to let the past pass, an old bitterness gripped rigidly and conservatively, held so long it has begun to work on the one who holds it. The keeping feels like principle and self-protection; it is a slow self-poisoning by what will not be released. The clinical name is a shape, not a diagnosis. What it asks for is to let one old grievance move through and out.

I won't let the old grievance go; I hold it tight, even as it turns and works on me.

Ahab, who fixed the whole of himself on a single unforgiven wound and would not let it go, and it took him down into the sea with it. The form implies a task: to loose the grip before it pulls one under.