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JUL 15, 2006
THE
HOLE STORY
There is very little satisfaction in
being right about being
sick. That is to say, if you think there’s
something seriously amiss with your health – you’re in pain, or there’s
suddenly an extra hole in your body, for example – but the doctor
assures you
all is well, there’s not much pleasure in later learning that you were,
in
fact, correct.
Sure, you can join the jokesters who have the
epitaph “See,
I told you I was sick” on their
tombstones. But I always say it’s far
better to be alive than to be right. (See
also: “No, I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to pet that
alligator .
. . but I will if you will.”)
As it turns out, I was right about the
lump mentioned in the last
post. Mind you, I’m alive, and I
fully intend to stay that way for a good long while.
But it wasn’t just the adorable little benign
bulge I was led to believe. No sir, it
was – is – an abscess plus a fistula.
When I last posted, the doctor said
it’d go away with a
regimen of potent drugs and long baths. So,
hopped up on pills and shriveled to a prune from
all the soaking, I went
about my life, assuming Ye Olde Lumpe would wither and shrink and go
away. For about three days, this seemed to
be
happening, and I was happy to have been wrong in my earlier contention
that a big
ol’ lump anywhere on the body, is never anything less than cause for serious frickin’ alarm.
And then day four came, and the swelling
resumed, and the
pain came back with renewed vigor. Back
to the doctor’s office I went, where there were still no copies of that
issue
of the Smithsonian magazine that I’ve
been trying to find, but where I did encounter a doctor who looked exactly like your archetypal comic book
mad scientist – bushy moustache, perfectly round head with Krusty the
Clown-worthy tufts of grey hair bursting from either side of the
otherwise-bald
dome – and his sidekick, the World’s Largest Hypodermic Needle, which
the
gregarious and charming Dr. Mad
Scientist proceeded to poke into my tush. In
went the needle, out came the, er,
contents of the lump, in what I’m sure was a dramatic sucking sound,
but
frankly I was too busy gritting my teeth and trying to keep the cursing
to a
minimum to notice.
“It’ll drain for a few more days,”
said the good doc as he
placed an enormous wad of gauze over my new opening.
Indeed. And how. Because it turned out there was a reason this
lump got so big. This little, disgusting
reservoir-o-crap had a tributary, a fistula starting the lowest part of
my
colon.
In other words, I had a second asshole.
Make that present tense: have. Have
had for the last three or so weeks.
On the plus side, I can now fart in
two-harmony. Fifty bucks says you don’t
know anyone else
who can do that.
The bad news is . . . well, you can guess. It
ain’t pretty. It’s
not quite as foul as it could be, I
suppose, and as long as I don’t move around too much, I can go about my
daily
life without too much, shall we say, drainage. But
“too much movement” can mean a trip to the
grocery store down the
block, I have learned. I was never
really one for the sedentary lifestyle, and I usually find that
exercise makes
me heal faster and feel better. But my
exercise of choice, in-line skating, seems like a horrible idea right
now, to
say nothing of jumping jacks.
Worse, Dr. Suave
says that these things don’t usually heal
by themselves, at least not for those with Crohn’s.
There is a surgical solution, a procedure that
closes it up, but again, it’s not usually useful for those with Crohn’s. This discussion with Dr. Suave led, as so
many do, to mention of the one thing that would probably clear up all
my
problems, but which I cannot fathom doing. You
know the one. The bag.
Can’t have problems with your rectum if you don’t
have one. And this time, unlike last time,
it wouldn’t
just be a three-month detour, a time-out for my colon while it works
out its
issues and thinks about all the pain it’s caused me.
This time would be for real. Forever.
In ten years, we can talk; maybe even in five. Right now, no.
These last few weeks have been rough, dealing with
the drip
and the pain and the uncertainty of it all, all the while haunted by Dr. Suave’s
words. These things don’t heal, almost
never. You might need to start thinking
about . . .
There are a lot of jokes in
this blog, some funny, some perhaps not, but I can never really bring
myself to make
fun of a dire situation if I’m still in it, still haunted by the pain,
the pills,
and pessimism about what will happen next week or next month.
But last week, I called my gastroenterologist’s
office to give
them an update and see if they had the results from some blood work I’d
had
done. It didn’t hurt anymore, and the
drainage had slowed down to an occasional drop, a flow far less
alarming than
the previously never-ending stream. The
nurse talked to the doctor and called me back.
“She says it sounds like it’s starting to heal.”
OH, AND
ALSO . . .
OK, now that
you've read that, here's a special bonus piece that I couldn't bring
myself to post without providing some context. But with the
above in mind, perhaps you might enjoy reading this. Or
not.
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