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.

___________________________________________________

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.

In 2008 my weight hit an all time low. I hadn’t been that tiny since I was a teenager, I dropped below ninety pounds at thirty-one, with a frame of five foot five and three quarter inches. I got rid of my scale years ago and normally only weigh myself at the doctor.

I’ve always wanted to speak of my personal issues with weight on my blog but haven’t until now believed I was in a healthy enough place to tell the bad but see it from a positive place. Although I am very comfortable talking about my depression in general, the anxiety, the suicidal thoughts etc., I’ve always left my weight issues sort of off limits.

Having watched myself go from having to try and hold my weight at 115 once I bought my wedding dress in January of 2006 to it almost being too big by that August and then almost immediately following the wedding packing on what I very fondly referred to as the Newlywed Fifteen (it was more like twenty) that became what was originally my very first positive experience with weight until at the weight of approx 130-135 in the below photo I was called fat. And my instant reaction was, are you fucking kidding me 130-135 on my frame IS NOT FAT. Am I in shape in the beige bra photo NO, but fat, fuck off.

But it still hurt. It hurt because I’d been picked on my entire life for being too thin and now I was happy and bitches were calling me fat. Realizing 100% that you can’t win is one thing but it opened up an even bigger defense system in me when people would comment on how great I looked just to call me fat behind my back AND the EXACT same thing happened in the other direction as well, people telling me how great I looked just to turn around and back stab the shit out of me for being too thin.

The facts in my case are this: I hate food, despise it, give me a pill that has everything I need to stay at a healthy weight I’d be living on cloud nine and up until around twenty -six I did have the metabolism of a race horse and the abs of a wash board this was all before I admitted to myself that I did in fact have a problem, a problem REGARDLESS of whether or not a was born with thin genes and ran races with fast times. When I spiral into long and serious depressive periods I starve myself. NOT because I want to be thin, the emaciated body that ends up staring back at me in the mirror makes me sick, but it isn’t enough to make me eat, the image is not the issue. The metallic taste of what feels like a bar forms across the back of my throat and I live on tomato soup and fruit IF I eat, the anxiety generally wins and I don’t.

In therapy I’ve discussed with my shrink that I believe that the weight loss I suffer through my worst depressive periods will someday have a disorder name because everything has to have a label and I know I’m not alone in the disliking food department but it isn’t socially acceptable and just like people can’t seem to wrap their head around how demeaning and disgusting it is to say to something to the effect of “Holy crap are you ever skinny”, big surprise they can’t figure out that if affects the EXACT same place in the brain when a woman is called fat and it is NOT A GOOD PLACE. Either comment is ignorant and unnecessary for women AND men to have to stand and listen to. I rarely if EVER comment on people’s weight.

I have heard my larger girlfriends complain of men saying “wow what a pretty face if only she wasn’t fat.” I had a man CHANT “cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers” at me for the duration of whatever we had. I’ve been told to EAT SOMETHING when I’m eating everything in sight: bags of cookies, ice cream, cake, donuts, BURGERS you name it and the weight will not stay on if I’m suffering mentally.

Even at my thinnest I have stood strong in saying, ok thanks for that compliment but I’m too thin and working on a healthy weight.  It greatly changes my opinion of people who compliment me when I weigh in the 90’s and MEAN IT when my clothes are literally hanging off me, in some cases I probably think you are sick and have a problem of your own.  Part of why I have waited until now to write on this is because these aren’t just words to me and I refuse to perpetuate the skinny bitch stereotype, that it’s all shits and giggles and perfect outfits and FUN! It doesn’t exist we are all in the same boat.

I have never been happier about my body than I am right now. But thanks for asking.

i lost a girlfriend a while ago and even though i know it is for the best i miss her like i haven’t missed losing someone in years. so many things make me want to pick up my phone and text message her, [Big Love has some great one liners this season] but i can’t and wouldn’t because she made her choice and i’ll never get it or know why.

Sometimes I have a million and fourteen thoughts running through my head but I still feel like I have writers block. That is me right now except it is a million and forty four thoughts. I don’t feel like I could write a post on ONE THING and stick to that ONE THING. Where would I start?

• Since finding out that my parents are getting divorced I have danced around in a bodysuit, dressed seriously bad, busted my mom out of Bali on a mostly covert mission starring stealth moves only, been given the best ever ‘no skanks allowed’, the long edition NOT the ‘clam slam’ robe from the airport in Denpasar Bali, ASIA to be exact. It is so huge I have been pretending I am a boxer whilst wearing it, #parentsdivorce scary YouTube video coming soon set to Eye of the Tiger, Survivor OR S&G The Boxer. I’m not SAD yet. I am mostly hyper.  It is easier to picture them apart than I thought it would be. Or it might be that my dad is sitting pretty in Bali probably ordering in Balinese whores and my mother is stuck in freezing cold Toronto with her mother. Who knows? AND I cut my hair AND I have been eating A LOT of peanut butter cookies. OH and I have been smoking joints like they are cigarettes. Note to self = must for serious stop that last part. BUT almost everyone I have told that to has said I WOULD BE TOO, so it makes it harder to stop.

• I read The Reader, Bernhard Schlink in some ridiculously fast amount of time that made me feel like a fast reader for the duration of the book, my eyes flew across the prose so beautiful that when I compare it to other novels I have loved before I am reminded of The Road, Cormac McCarthy and how it not only remains one of my favourite books but it left me wanting more, and I love a book that I can praise for many a reason, but it leaving me wanting more is probably up there with my favourite things about stories and their inescapable endings.  I am looking forward to writing more Books vs Movie posts.

• Although in all reality the computer being as broken as it is SUCKS the ONLY good thing is that the Media Player is also broken so it isn’t counting how many times I have listened to the new Neko Case album Middle Cyclone. I am seriously thinking over one hundred times by now because I don’t just know the words I know the correct words to the songs. See, I have Scrobbling enabled on Last.fm most of the time and I already have a gross disparity between Neko Case number of listens = 4,618 and Tool coming in a distant second = 1,020 and I’ve been listening to Tool since 1996, kinda freaky in a freaky way that the Neko count is actually low but that brings me to my review, which I can write very quickly for you right here in two words: FUCKING AWESOME. Waiting with a “glacier’s patience” for it paid off.  We have tickets for the June show already but I messed up and bought the tickets in American dollars and I haven’t told Adam, hey babe, sorry bout that, see you on the couch. But we would rather give the money to things set up by her people anyway.

• I was randomly thinking how I like being able to look at a photo of myself that you can see my arms in and know what year it was taken in from the tattoos. I also haven’t been able to stop thinking about getting a new tattoo; I mean this is a HUGE life change. #parentsdivorce

• I wasn’t going to mention this but I will because not only do I enjoy laughing at myself sometimes annoying my own self can have the same affect. So like, more than two point five years ago when I joined Twitter I had it running through my Facebook as my status updates right like that is nothing new people do it, but I stopped because I go through phases like NOW (give me a break please my parents are GETTING A  D.I.V.O.R.C.E, Tammy Wynette style, #parentsdivorce) where I talk a lot and didn’t want to annoy people, but now that Facebook is trying to become Twitter, I do now again have my status updates running through there because that is what they want right? They want Twitter; I’ll give em Twitter alright. Currently listening to Neko Case.

• All I will say right now is that it is really ODD to be almost 32 years old [LESS than three months away] and have parents married more than 39 years going their separate ways #parentsdivorce. We have all gone to our corners, I haven’t heard from my mom since she left for YYZ and I haven’t heard from my dad in a few weeks now.  I’m still set on marinate, information overload, over stimulation, snap dragon mode.

• Adam’s photos for what was on Twitter referred to as #mission #PRJ until he was on the way back and I let it be known that #PRJ meant #pacificrimjob can be found on his flickr. It is basically Bali from a Taxi with cool shots of kitties.