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.

I was almost late leaving on the journey to my CT Scan destination at UBC Hospital, the same hospital that I had my infamous ass surgery at because I was playing with the ILike application on Facebook. I was catching a cab with my friend Stephanie from her place so I had to go there first. I had to pee really bad when I got there because I had been required to drink a litre of water about an hour and a half before, plus it is HOT here right now so drinking extra water is necessary I couldn’t eat but that was no big deal because who has an appetite in the heat? Not me. We got into a cab with air conditioning and Stephanie talked to the cab driver. She is friendlier than me.

The horrid memories of my ass surgery came rushing back to me because I went in the same entrance but once inside I went in a totally different direction. At the radiology area there were a crap load of people sitting there and I got pretty concerned and almost stressed out that we were going to be there all day and here was Stephanie bringing me there and back in a cab I SO did not want her sitting there forever. Thankfully we were sent down the hall and there was an In Touch magazine there and even though it was from October 2006 none of the gossip is true anyway so it is LIKE new when you have never seen the issue no matter how old anyway. You could see the CT scanner from where we were sitting and everyone getting scans was old.

Right after I took another pee I was taken into an area to get an IV. I really do not like IVs, not at all. But I never saw the needle, this was definitely a bonus. I ask as I always do when they go for my left arm if it is OK that I am left handed because of COURSE the whole room is set up to only put IVs in left arms. Because my luck never fails me I got the nurse, brand new at the hospital, who did know how to put in IVs but she was still being shown where everything was and ‘how they do it’ at UBC Hospital, as I listen to them discuss how it works THERE I am inserted with the IV. Big prick. Little sting. Comments on my tattoo. At first it is just a saline drip, I’m taken right in and lay on the table under the scanner, they put pads on either side of my head but my head was too small to keep in place so they strapped it in and I suddenly felt like I was in A Clockwork Orange but not really just sort of. The first few scans were contrast injection [iodine] free. I tried really hard not to move and didn’t get itchy anywhere and stared up into the massive machine spinning above me until I thought I might get dizzy. When they inject the iodine they come back in and hold your arm to make sure it is going in properly and they give you the warning that you will likely feel heat start at the back of the throat and find its way down the body into the crotch area where it again will feel HOT and MAY feel like you are peeing yourself. Awesome.

There is no warning for what that feels like I sure don’t remember having fire crotch from my scan in 1994 in fact in 1994 I had to hold the tube with iodine in it in my hand with the IV in my arm AND not move so at least the process has come a ways or it may just be that I had that CT scan in Terrace we will never know. The fire crotch was a high point because you really can’t help but laugh, I mean I was laying there flexing my kegels like mad JUST to make sure I was not peeing myself but there was no pleasure it was flat out FIRE CROTCH.

I had to sit with my IV for about ten minutes because the iodine dehydrates you and then I got a band aid on my owie from the IV needle and we went on our way. We had the same cab driver on the way back. And I gotta say thanks again to Stephanie because for a hospital visit and fire crotch in already 30 degree weather it was a pretty damn fun day!

Yesterday I spent most of the day sleeping. I tried really hard to stay up but my depression just completely over took me and it was bed for me. I wanted to read to avoid bed but couldn’t pick my book up. I was freezing and slept in my full track suit and staggered out of bed about thirty minutes before Adam walked in from work. I’ve been trying to fight this off for almost two weeks now but am losing the battle. Each day I seem to be getting worse. I am feeling defeated. And it makes me cry.

I feel like I tried hard, but what does that matter. I found a combination of medications that were working for me, or so I thought, there was bright light at the end of the tunnel. I was feeling good about myself; I was being social, answering my phone, leaving my apartment, running, reading a lot. Right now I have a major headache and I can’t eat which I know is not helping the headache. It is warm out and all my windows are closed because I am freezing. I want go to bed now but I normally try to make it till early afternoon.

I’m pissed off that I have side affects from my medication that are serious enough I need a bloody CT scan. I got called for my appointment yesterday but haven’t called back yet because it is at a stupid hospital far away from where I live and I’m starting to wonder if my Dr. is retarded seriously how fucking hard is it to book me into a hospital near my home not over an hour away on transit, I had my ass surgery there as well and it was a total inconvenience and ended in me barfing in my friend Dvo’s truck due to the crazy driving and ridiculously long drive home. The receptionist at my Doctor’s office is a bitch and I’m just not in the mood to deal with her.

The drop in the Risperidone is really fucking with me. My hormones because I’m producing prolactin when I’m not pregnant are making me feel like I have 24 hour a day PMS. While my ‘breast milk’ is not really going away due one to me playing with my boobs constantly and two because I am still on SOME risperidone my extreme paranoia [negative attentional bias] has returned with a vengeance I can’t even imagine how bad it’ll be get when I’m off the risperidone completely. There are other drugs that can be added back to my cocktail so I will be back on track but that isn’t the point, isn’t even CLOSE TO THE POINT.

I can’t handle the simplest things right now. If I try to talk to someone on MSN and they are ONLINE and ignore me, they hate me. If I’m talking to someone and they sign off-line, they hate me. I’m finding myself jealous of everything and feeling left out of everything and feeling like no one wants to hang out with me. I am feeling like I am annoying everyone and unaccepted. I’m taking everything personally, even things that have NOTHING to do with me or do they I seriously don’t know and am jumping to conclusions because I can’t control my emotions or my feelings. I am so fucking selfish I hate myself a lot, I can’t see past the end of my fucking nose half the time and I don’t even know why people are friends with me because I act like the world revolves around me and all my problems are the end of the world. All or nothing thinking is for pussies and I’m a pussy. I feel like my mind is driving me insane. I wanted to take my whole bottle of clonazepam this morning but didn’t because it won’t kill me anyway and Dr. Buttle will just make me get my dosages in weekly re-fills for months again like last time I pulled that shit. It is fucked because even though I am back to planning out possible suicide attempts in grand detail in my mind that take up many hours of staring off into space I am in a space where even though I can’t stop planning it I don’t really want to die at present I just want to sleep till I’m not depressed anymore. The only problem is my reasons for wanting to live are not my reasons, they aren’t for me.

I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the things I am supposed to be working on in therapy so that one day I can come off medication which is obviously not ever going to happen because I can’t even handle a 25mg drop in ONE of three meds I take. My mindfulness training, my meditation, my empathy exercises and breathing I can’t or won’t do any of it right now because it all seems fucking pointless. And honestly learning how to feel empathy and put myself in other peoples shoes because I’m a selfish fucking bitch is just making me feel worse about myself.

Over the years I’ve had some petty interesting side affects taking anti-depressants. Or I thought I had. And now I can’t even really think of many, there is always the weight gain, I have never been spared the sexual side affects, this one time I went on a drug that exacerbated all of my worst depression symptoms and I went NUTS until I was off of it. Coming off meds I’ve had the regular side affects, night sweats, the shakes, nightmares, anxiety, basically it isn’t fun.

One day I was inspecting my boobs, the whole boob, nipples included; just inspecting them, nothing serious and I noticed on both nipples a bubble of fluid appeared. I instantly started squeezing my nipple but hardly any more fluid was coming out. I love picking at stuff, it is like a bloody drug. But I somehow forgot about the fluid in my nipples until after a run a week or so later, they had become a little irritated and I was tentatively scratching them when again fluid appeared on the tips of my nipples. During this inspection I must have pressed on the areola and gotten a bit of my breast in with it because fluid gushed out. The fluid was clear with a milky, yellowish color and I pressed and pressed and let it run down my chest till it was drained and then did the other side. I was in a trance. It was like having six zits lined up in a row that you KNOW are going to explode onto the mirror but better. Although on one hand I was concerned the fascination of being able to drain fluid down my chest from my nipples was winning over because for one it didn’t hurt.

I do not know why but I kept this to myself. I was embarrassed which honestly made no sense to me having had and written extensively about my ass surgery. In the beginning I didn’t even become obsessed with nipple draining I didn’t tell Adam for probably two weeks. Nothing I read on-line in regards to leaky nipples was good so I decided to also tell a pregnant friend and she said it sounded like breast milk and I should for sure go have it looked at but I knew I wasn’t pregnant and apparently breast milk doesn’t come in right away. I’d probably had it for going on three or four weeks by this time.

I went to a walk in clinic and got the same Dr. I got last time when I went in because my allergies were really really bad and I knew there was nothing that could be done but I was being a baby. GREAT. Now I get to tell this Dr. about my leaky nipples and show her because she made me I pressed out a nice bubble of fluid and she passed me a tissue. She sent me for blood tests, one for pregnancy and one that would measure my prolactin levels.

I got called back for the test results the next day and was totally afraid I was pregnant but am not, awesome. But my prolactin levels were HIGH the Dr. [a new one this time] started going off on how this was bad and asked about all my medications wrote them all down and started to get all serious and saying he was going to send me to an endocrinologist, and that I was going to need a CAT scan an MRI and that I could have tumors. I hear tumors and basically heard nothing else after that. I could feel the color drain from my face. I said Tumors??

This Dr. was so extreme I didn’t even realize he is talking about tumors in my head and not my breasts at first. All I knew was that I had real breast milk coming out of my nipples and I didn’t have a baby on the way to feed. I entered back into reality and decided this really wasn’t working for me and requested that all of this information be sent to my actual family Dr. and I would deal with it from there. Nothing he was saying was making any sense and it was really freaking me out and I told him I would rather deal with one Dr. instead of seeing a different bloody Dr. every time I went to the walk in clinic. My Dr. is a bit of a trek I only go over to her for big things. I figured this warranted a visit. I made the appropriate appointment.

Now in between all of this non pleasurable action happening around my breasts I had a therapy appointment and I went in all stressed out and let my story stream out from the first detail. The explaining how I discovered the actual fluid being the most comfortable part to tell.

Dr. Buttle after listening attentively to my experience at the walk in clinic and my fears over all the urgency asked me why I had never mentioned this was happening in a previous session. [Well shit man I was embarrassed of course, and did not see what relevance it had to my therapy now the cat is out of the bag and I'm stressed.] [Obviously.] This was where he mentioned that risperidone the newest drug added to my cocktail can cause a woman to start producing prolactin, it is rare at the dose I’m on [of course] but that is what he felt was causing it. And he instantly lowered my risperidone dosage.

It was decided that I would not see my family Dr. until my therapist had a chance to talk things over with her because although it was probably just the medication causing it there was talk of a CAT scan and talk of more blood tests.

As it stands now I have seen my Dr. and gone for a second set of blood tests where they took lots of my blood, results should be back soon, and I am waiting to hear when my CAT scan is and I go back for more blood tests in July. At first I was pretty worried because the fluid was not slowing down but now it is so I am definitely leaning towards medication side affects and not that I’m dying. Having the prolactin levels high in my system when I’m not pregnant can cause its own set of new problems but right now I am just concentrating on the positive like being able to offer myself as a wet nurse to my girlfriend. I can’t think of a better gift to offer a friend with a baby.