I’m the kind of guy that has to have something to read while doing his business in the john. I know that’s not very unusual, I know lots of people who do the same thing. My uncle from my mom’s side does it. Before he has to go; he always picks up a newspaper and brings it with him while he sits on the throne.
I’m a lot like that; I must have something to read while doing number two, be it a book, a magazine, a brochure, as long as it’s something that I can read. In rare instances when I really have to go and there is just no time to grab some sort of reading material, I would settle for the back side of shampoo bottles and go through reading ingredients and directions for use. You know, I think that whole rinse and repeat thing some shampoos insist on is just a scam to have you use up the product faster.
Anyway, a year ago I noticed blood together with my stuff. I asked my best friend about it, he’s a doctor, and he told me it was nothing to worry about. I have not had any significant weight loss and I was way too young to have colon cancer. But then lately it started happening more often and in my last check up, I was diagnosed as being very anemic.
So as it turned out it was due to the loss of blood. So I went to this other doctor and was scolded at why I had to wait for so long to have it really checked up. I said I was busy at work and that it’s highly possible that I have hemorrhoids from sitting in the bowl longer than I probably should. I told the doctor that I liked to read. I was just about to randomly say that some shampoos actually infuse nourishing creamy yogurt energizers that gently cleanses and wraps around hair strands when she told me that worse case scenario was that I might actually have colon cancer. I was told that I needed a colonoscopy (it’s like an alien anal probe, only it’s done by doctors) and have any found polyp biopsied. I stopped being funny right there.
As positive as I tried to be about the entire thing, I would have to be honest that I fell in a pit of depression waiting for the lab results. For the whole week that I had to wait, I did DVD marathons watching The Sopranos before I went to bed because I wanted to make sure that when I closed my eyes, I would be sleeping and not thinking about my health and the associated “what ifs”. I was completely paranoid that if I felt a slight stomach spasm, I’d worry if it had something to do with cancer. I could have googled stuff on the net, but I was too afraid of knowing the details, I figured the less I knew at that point, the less I’d have to worry. It wasn’t easy putting up a calm façade, especially to my wife who I later found out was secretly more of a wreck than I was.
When I got the results I was overwhelmed with relief to know that the biopsy results were benign. Thank God. But I was still losing a lot of blood and needed a hemorrhoidectomy the soonest time possible.
I was told by the surgeon that the procedure was quite common. My wife was pretty discreet about it though, I wasn’t. When people ask me what procedure I am going to be admitted for, I openly said I was going to have my butt operated on. And the surprising thing was, when I started talking about what I was going through, I found out that a lot of people I know had mild cases of it as well. It was like Hemorrhoids Anonymous and I was the keynote speaker.
But as common as it was, it was definitely an in patient procedure. I was told that I need not worry about the actual procedure though because I was going to be completely spaced out throughout the entire half hour while the surgeons did their thing. But being the big wussy that I am, it was the recuperation that I was actually more worried about.
You see, I have extremely low threshold for pain. About 7 years ago, I accidentally caught the tip of my right hand’s index finger on our mechanical water pump while I was fixing it. My finger nail broke in two, exposing the flesh and nail bed underneath. It hurt like a bitch. When I had to clean it up before I went to the doctor, I nearly fainted from the surprisingly huge amount of pain that suddenly came surging through my head. But that was like a needle prick compared to the suffering that I went through when the soothing effects of the anesthesia finally bid the insides of my butt farewell.
It was interesting to discover how many basic bodily functions and simple movements were magnified as moments of sheer excruciating discomfort when recovering from a hemorrhoidectomy. For the first three days I was in the hospital, every time I would sneeze, cough, pass gas, or even lightly chuckle, it would be like having brief butt surgeries all over again only without the numbing assistance of anesthesia. And as for pooping, well imagine trying to push out razor blades every time you had to go do it. I had to take laxatives that were supposed to help with the process, it did very little. Well, let me just say that I have an idea of what a flame thrower feels like. I swear there were times I almost blacked out from the sharp throbbing pain.
I tell you, even when I was at home resting I was still in so much pain that I was literally popping pain killers like they were M&Ms. In fact to illustrate, if Jessica Alba were to suddenly show up naked in my bed room, I would probably say, “Jessica! Great, you’re here. Be a doll and get me two 550mg Flanax forte tablets and a glass of water. The tablets are on the dinning table outside, they are the blue ones right beside my Duphalac laxatives. Oh and for Christ’s sake, please put some clothes on, I have a five year old daughter in the house! How did you get in here anyway?”
It wasn’t all that bad I guess. Granted that I do wish it was under different circumstances, but I was able to get off work and be with my lovely and very supportive wife Cathy. She also took days off work and it was probably the most time we’ve spent together in a long while, she definitely made the pain a lot bearable. I wouldn’t have known what to do without her. She was by my side the entire time. I saw my Mom and Dad more often in the past weeks and they actually came by my house a few times to visit me. Thanks to the miracle of maintenance stool softeners, I do not dread going to the john as much as I did a week ago. And I guess the entire experience has made me reevaluate what I put inside my body and the amount of time I need sitting down to actually process them out.
I’d like to take this time to thank all the people who visited me in the hospital, the people who prayed for me while I was in the dark wondering if I had cancer, the people who texted me wishing that I get well soon, the people in the office who covered for me while I was on sick leave, the lovely nurses and the efficient staff at The Medical City hospital, my mom and dad for the visits and the bags of delicious mocca ensaymadas, my daughter for cheering me up and hugging me every time she saw I was grunting in pain, and of course my wife Cathy who patiently fulfilled the “in sickness” part of her vows throughout my recovery.
It’s been three weeks since the surgery. I am still not allowed to do really strenuous activities or lift heavy stuff, but I do feel a lot better. In fact, if Jessica Alba were to come back, this time I’d probably say, “Hey... umm, about the other time, listen I apologize. I was really in a lot of pain, plus I love my wife. Why don’t you put your clothes back on and let me get you a few mocca ensaymadas, they are really great. You can stay here and we can watch The Sopranos. By the way, you really do have lovely hair in person, I bet your shampoo has Vitanol, did you know that the vitamins and lipid boosters in those things actually nourishes your hair strands from the inside?”
