How I Broke Up with My Colon – Fascinating, Bizarre, and True Health Stories

by Christian Bellmore

How I Broke Up with My Colon – Fascinating, Bizarre, and True Health Stories, is the most recent of Nick Seluk’s (creator of The Awkward Yeti webcomic) books, illustrates twenty-four medical stories submitted by folks around the world, most of which are wild and bizarre—some stuck with me so much that they’ve made appearances in my dreams! This book’s aimed for teenagers and adults, especially those who like strange medical stories.

I’ve been a fan of the The Awkward Yeti webcomic for a while, so it surprised me that How I Broke Up with My Colon was different to the comics I’m used to. For those who don’t know, The Awkward Yeti usually consists of a few panels with anthropomorphic organs interacting with each other or the yeti himself, often poking fun at them while providing information at the same time. So a book of people’s medical experiences accompanied by Seluk’s art confused me at first.

Which was on me. I mean, the cover literally says “True Health Stories”. I should have expected this. Anyways, the book starts off with a prologue explaining which parts were exactly as the storyteller said (again, another clue that this wouldn’t be like other Awkward Yeti books) and goes right into the first story. The stories range from medical complications to freak accidents to mental illness to weird experiences from medical students. Some are funny, some are disturbing, and some are heartbreaking. Seluk’s art adds wonderful visualizations as well, providing much needed comic relief.

As the subtitle states, lots of the stories in How I Broke Up with My Colon are bizarre, so readers should expect some stories to be more disturbing than others, though most of the more bloody ones have warnings beforehand (and to be fair, Seluk has a cartoony style, so even the parts with blood aren’t gory or anything). I do wish more stories had warnings though. Furthermore, the warning before “MacGyver Syndrome” just said “butt”, which did not properly prepare me for the next few pages—which is in no way the fault of the author. Nothing can prepare you for that story. I’ve thought about this a
ridiculous amount and couldn’t think of anything better. There’s really no good warning.

The book is informative as well as humorous! I learned a lot from How I Broke Up with My Colon: like what causes a disc to slip and that situs ambiguus polysplenia exists (meaning someone’s organs are arranged differently than most). There were a few things I had to look up on my own (i.e., I didn’t know what a duodenum was before reading this book), but most things were explained well, especially as the book went on. It covers nearly everything that lives in your abdomen (who knew so many organs made stones!) in mostly accessible terms that are easy to understand.

All in all, How I Broke Up with My Colon – Fascinating, Bizarre, and True Health Stories was just as funny and informative as The Awkward Yeti comics and is worth the read.

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Christian Bellmore (they/them) recently graduated from Cornell College with a degree in English and art. They’ve been reading comics their entire life and are interested in writing their own someday. Chris is allegedly a human living on Earth.