Well, about a month ago I started getting pains in the upper right quadrant of my stomach. My guess was gall bladder issues. When I went to the ER when the pain got too bad, they suspected my gall bladder was inflamed and sent me home telling me to re-evaluate my diet after doing a blood test, ultra sound, and urine analysis. This was based on their professional opinions because I never once mentioned what I thought or what I read until after they came to their "judgment".

I've done pretty good on my diet, and the pain left after about a week of eating healthier.

Well, I was at home just about a half hour ago and had a bowel movement that has me worried. The first half of the bowel seemed fine and healthy, but the later part was bright red (possibly blood), with mucus.

It was also a lot looser than the earlier part, but wasn't diarrhea. The red was mixed into the stool to the point every part of the later half was red, but wasn't present on the earlier healthy appearing segment. It wasn't like two separate stools either, they appeared to be pretty well connected.

So where am I at? I have no clue what this could be, and I absolutely can not afford another snipe hunt visit to the doctor or ER.

I've eaten Taco Bell, ravioli, pizza, and macaroni and cheese in the past few days. That may be a legitimate cause for the coloring for some people, but I eat a lot of "red" foods and have never had anything even remotely similar to this happen.

Could this possibly be an ulcer? Hemorrhoids? Infection? Virus? Cancer? I'm freaking out, and if I rack up any more bills I'm going to have to claim bankruptcy. :(

I'm a 22 year old male that smokes, rarely drinks, and isn't over weight but I'm not exactly top condition.

My sister recently had something similar to what you experienced. She had bloody stool with mucus. I can't remember if it was a bacterial or viral infection, but it was one of those. In her case, it wasn't hemorrhoids. But you should get checked out, it may be something different in your case.