I guess I find it interesting when people who live their lives online and put themselves in a bubble of public eyes suddenly feel they have a right to privacy when things go to shit between you, yet you lived a lot of the good parts of your relationship(s) on a public blog. People, including myself, worry about their reputation, perceptions, pretend they don’t care at all, yet we all exhibit emotionally driven behavior to the contrary. Most of us today, because we so rarely actually speak to one another, would rather fire off a passive aggressive comment around on open forums instead of actually dealing with interpersonal problems.

There is a line in one of my favourite songs by Terry Reid, the song is called To be Treated, where he sings:

we are what we are when in danger and we are as we stand head in hand

The whole thing speaks to a place in me that just wants to be peaceful, doesn’t want to resent, to feel anger so strong sometimes it feels like my blood may boil over from my mouth, nose, eyes and ears covering me in my mistakes, disintegrating everything good I’ve managed to accomplish in its midst. The fight or flight feeling when I perceive myself to be in danger or feel I’ve been burned is normal but it doesn’t have to control me. I can’t control what other people do all I can do is continue to work on how I react to it.

In the big picture, when big problems happen in my life I don’t want to lash out, overreact, hold onto unhealthy thoughts, or allow myself to sit in the victim chair. I’ve been working on the big picture for coming on a year and it is still some of the hardest work I have ever taken on. It is up there with coming to terms and dealing with my relationship with my parents. It strikes me as incredibly odd and painful that I can forgive the man who came into my home in 2002 and sexually assaulted me and I can’t forgive two women who have wronged me from behind their computers. Why can I let go of so many other things in my life, why can I come so far with forgiving some yet have no love for a few?

I know that I like resolutions to things, I like to work things out, I can admit when I’m wrong, where I don’t think a lot of people can, it’s very freeing, like learning to laugh at yourself. I wish I could feel more compassion instead of anger, at times I do, but moving on is a struggle here. I think because I’ve been able to get my life on track regardless of how hard my depression gets in almost every other area I don’t understand why I can’t have a resolution to these two problems, I feel helpless and misunderstood, ignored, taken advantage of. I know I am NOT a victim, I’m not the only one at fault. I would assume I have to forgive myself as well, but if I had my relationship with myself listed on Facebook it would be complicated.

We all live in this technologically advanced world, even Adam and I who have only ONE computer (the horror!). Things move so fast the average person can not keep up. Yet we seem to be taking steps backwards in dealing with people and with the relationships that ensue. We act like adolescents when someone says or writes something mean about us, threaten to sue over the thought of a reputation. For real? By feeding into the trend of everyone living their lives online we don’t seem to be gaining any lasting enlightenment, we are limiting ourselves psychologically, I don’t need to even read a book or be a doctor to see that. A society where people don’t have to wear pants is doomed from the get go.

There was a time I thought that I would write extensively about the Vancouver 2010 Olympics while they were here, but when they arrived I found myself uninterested in writing anything on the actual games, anything positive I had to say I could have turned around and written from the opposite stand point. I’m always up for good clean sports though I was never what you would call an Olympic supporter, but I wasn’t a bitcher either. I did however vote NO for the games. I’ll never forget it it because it turned the vast majority of people in the office I worked in against me, I was one of the only people who lived downtown (small office), I was also the youngest in this particular place and I ran competitively at the time and due to being an athlete people were appalled that I would vote NO. The fact has always remained the same, I voted from a political standpoint, the part of my mind that believed and still believes that it was a joke that only Vancouver got to vote on something that our children’s children’s children will still be paying for was the appalling thing. Granted, not MY children. My debt is payed off when I die.

I spent most of the games feeling depressed and creatively blocked. I considered doing a wrap up post of 17 photos for 17 days but I didn’t take photos every day of the games, and even the photos I did take were pretty lacklustre, there aren’t many that I consider to be good photos. I did Tweet a lot, it went over pretty well for someone who doesn’t make a point to live Tweet a trip to the bathroom.

For me the only real highlight other than so many top ten finishes and fourteen gold medals for Canada was getting to go see the Canadian Men’s Curling team plus seven other countries. When the information on how the Olympic tickets were going to be sold and the prices were announced it became clear pretty quickly we wouldn’t be seeing any events. We didn’t even entertain the idea of getting to see anything anywhere but on a T.V., let alone see one live that both my parents and myself have played in the past and one that Adam and me watch. One that Adam is developing an odd obsession with, comparable only to when he discovered Tennis. (long story) So, when the opportunity arose from a friend who most graciously gave us, yes gave us Olympic curling tickets came to pass there was nothing else to do but go and to go wearing matching sweaters, something that we both agree is only acceptable on this one occasion. Adam wore my dad’s old curling sweater that I started to let him wear years ago because even though I love it, it is way too big for me. Oddly enough one of my closest girlfriends has the same sweater and lent me hers! Awesome. Getting to see Canada’s undefeated mens team second row right over the button is up there with best memories ever. Thanks again Steve!!

Adam went out exploring and people watching more than I did. There was also a time I didn’t think I would stay in the city for the games, and although I am glad I did, I think Adam would have had a better time had a I left. I hate that about depression, I’d been feeling so well and bam it just hit like a load of bricks almost a week in. I’m not in break down mode but I’m feeling really shitty.

It is nice that the helicopters are gone. I don’t miss the games at all, we watch golf. It’s over. We just changed the channel, there is curling on this weekend. But they left us with the cheque and the feeling remains that we are the province the country doesn’t care about. They came, they went, and now we pay.

The YouTube description: a stimulating, revealing and in-depth conversation between husband and wife where the husband doesn’t know he is being recorded. And I’m apparently accepting chest bumps.

Prologue

Back on February 8, 2006 when I came out with the secret that I had been a chronic hemorrhoid sufferer from the ripe old age of 19 I never imagined it would turn into an epic saga filling my life with enough material that I could write a book on What to Expect When You’re Expecting Rhoids. Nor did I realize how much support I would receive, granted my archives for 2006 are a disaster and ALL of the comments from the whole year are gone, but at the time when I realized just how many people were suffering with ass issues of their own, or for whatever reason wanted to be kept posted on my ass, I decided I would blog the entire adventure including the surgery.

I welcome you to read the posts I’m linking to in this Prologue, I will only include the main highlights here to either welcome you to the saga or refresh your memories. I particularly love the guest post that Adam did I think he captured my fear quite well.

My first bowel movement took over an hour. I chugged glass after glass of water to take my mind off the fact it was happening fresh out of bed at 7 something in the morning with absolutely no pain killers in the system. Everyone knows that I Corinna Liscumb have a mild tendency to exaggerate but this is different and I would never do that in regards to something like this, Adam sat on a stool [haha I said stool] the whole time and basically held my hand. Although I would give anything to see my facial expressions there was no fucking way I was busting out the camera even for something as memorable as that was. In case anyone is DYING to know my second pooh was much shorter but just as painful and involved yelling and the word ‘fuck’ at times.

Even years later I often think how when I woke up all the nurses were talking about my tattoos instead of say mentioning that not only was there a lot of gauze on the outside of the area BUT that there was a piece of gauze UP inside my anus that was about the size of my thumb. I was actually told about that there piece of gauze in my comments by one of my loyal readers [isn't enough to call Sarah a loyal reader, she's a friend as well, we've both been there for each other through some heavy shit over the years, she's the bomb].

Sarah knew an ass surgeon, I can’t remember exactly what she told me but it included and was not limited to a part about how *most people* when crapping out that piece of gauze pass out cold. Not like I didn’t already know it, but that confirmed to me that I’m one tough bitch.

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Although I still mention my ass surgery on here I’ve never felt the need to give an update.

Until now.

Even though everything looked fine on my initial follow up visit two weeks after, by six months I knew I had a problem.  Around this time I phoned the surgeon’s office back and explained that something wasn’t right, I was told that it could take up to a year to properly heal but to call back and come in if I had any pressing concerns. On the year anniversary, nothing had changed. By this time we’d done some research and discovered that having the hemorrhoidectomy did not mean that I would never get the rhoids again. OK FUCK WHAT? It explained a lot but I was livid, I should have been told that when making the decision to have this invasive and painful surgery in the consultation. My rhoids had not actually returned but I had noticed a piece of skin wasn’t tucking up inside like the rest were and it was easily irritated by say a thong.

I made an announcement on Twitter that I was returning to work. The day Adam walked in and said he had been laid off, I was on the phone to my girlfriend before he stepped out of his boots; she has gotten me all of my previous work in film, my schedule was shifted around a bit but I did get hours. Last Monday was my first day. Sometime during that 16.5 hours it felt like my ass had popped out a rhoid. I wasn’t surprised, I assumed this day was coming and I was working on location outside for that entire day, it almost made sense with my luck that this would be the time that they would return.

On Monday night when I got in the shower with what can only be described as despair I pushed that piece of swollen skin as far up my asshole as I could. I didn’t even have any Vaseline to help soothe the area, I recently hucked our container because it was from 2005. And sure maybe expiry dates aren’t completely accurate but I thought that 2005 warranted being thrown out. I returned to work on Tuesday and worked all 16 hours of it in a lot of pain but being the only female PA who was I going to tell? It was day TWO I was scheduled in till the following Monday. I OF COURSE didn’t want to let my girlfriend OR my husband down. But I had no choice I woke up Wednesday morning with the added thrill of a plugged nose and my cough had returned. I texted my on location contact/boss and my girlfriend/boss, but I only mentioned the onset of the cold out of no where. As I mentioned to her later I didn’t feel comfortable talking about rhoids over text message at whatever hour it was in the morning. THANKFULLY I was not fired, but I was taken off the rest of schedule for that episode. I thought for sure I was toast but I must have horseshoes in that dysfunctional ass of mine too.

I wasn’t able to see my family doctor until Saturday morning which was half my fault because my brain was set on I DON’T WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS – LA LA LA my ass doesn’t hurt so bad I can hardly sit.

I gave the doctor a quick rundown on the surgery, and my hospitalization at 19 (with a very serious case of thrombosed hemorrhoids) which began my ten year hot streak of internal and external rhoids before they were removed. I explained to him that I knew something had gone wrong with the leftover skin and prepared myself for the worst.

“What you have there is actually a yeast infection about this big [forefinger touching thumb around] causing the swelling, itching, redness”. Everything led this veteran rhoids suffer to believe they had them again. He did also confirm that the piece of skin was not a good thing and could cause me further problems down the road but that this was different. I was like “WHAT, I totally wash my ass man”, not to mention I have NEVER heard of an asshole yeast infection. He explained to me it has nothing to do with that, only not to wash my genitals with soap, I told him I hadn’t for years, I use hypoallergenic Vagisil wash. I know I have sensitive genitals, Vagisil wash is my friend. Taking this in was interesting because I don’t know the exact number of vaginal yeast infections I’ve had in my life, honestly WHO keeps track of that. It’s under five, and I’m almost 33.

This new development with my ass is both good news and bad. Good news no rhoids. Bad news FEELS like I have rhoids and right now I can’t work, I need a couple days, this stuff is supposed to work fast, which begged me to ask Adam the question(s) of “when a doctor tells you something like an ass cream works fast do you ever wonder why, like does he use it, has his wife used it, is he suffering from a yeast infected ass right now?” I guess now I’ll just keep my asshole yeast infection cream in my work bag and if it starts to act up again, take that, I have ASS CREAM.