Of Hemorrhoids and Heart Palpitations

I went poo! I went poo! The Lord does answer prayer!



.........uhhhhh........



Maybe I should start at the beginning......

I hadn't been to the doctor in years as of mid August 2007. My wife had wanted me to go get a family doctor all set up in case something happened, which is a good idea, it just wasn't working out for me.

Then, one day, I had a literal pain in the butt. We were a little nervous until we found out it was merely an extremely painful external hemorrhoid. Looks like it is definitely time to go to the doctor now. And I say "merely" since the first thought that jumps into everyone's head when there is a lump is cancer. Those who suffer from these awful afflictions know there is nothing "mere" about them.

So I go to the doctor and get some medicine prescribed. Some really fun medicine that you have to shove into your rear and make you feel like crap. They turn all gooey and, just to be perfectly honest about this, if you have to release gas you feel like you might have just crapped your pants.

Anyway, the medicine wasn't working and it made me feel lousy. But at least I could still go to the gym and exercise. I like to play racquetball, its a good workout and fun which is really quite amazing since most things that are good for you are rather boring.

Last Monday when I left the gym my heart started racing and beating VERY hard. I could see my shirt moving from the force of my heart pounding. I was sure that it would just explode at any moment. I sat in my car and waited for it to slow down but it didn't. I remember praying, "Lord, I don't really want to die in this parking lot."

I figured I should call 911 and I got my phone out, but then the accounting side of me took over and I figured I would just drive. If it didn't stop by the time I reached the hospital I would go in.

It didn't.

As soon as I told the nurse what was going on they grabbed me a wheelchair and wheeled me into the back. They asked me the heart attack questions which I must have answered correctly since they then decided to ignore me.

The pounding stopped.

It was so sudden that I was worried my heart had just stopped working. After having it pound that hard for 20 minutes I wasn't used to it not being so noticeable. I started thinking that since I hadn't been checked in yet they couldn't bill me. So I got up and told them I was leaving. I figured if it was something serious they would have had a doctor over to see me by now...and really, it was the Pekin hospital, chances were that they would kill me trying to treat me anyway.

So I went back to the doctor and had an EKG done, of course everything was normal. We also scheduled a time to see a surgeon about my other issue, one that wasn't so life threatening but still rather painful.

I went to the butt surgeon on Thursday and he decided just to remove it in his office that day. Nothing is quite as humbling as kneeling on a table with three people looking at your rear. I need to start sun tanning nude.

He walked up in front and said to me, "I'm not going to lie, the shot is going to hurt."

It did.

He showed me the removed hemorrhoid, if was nasty looking. But I felt great....until the anesthetic wore off. Fortunately my boss and my wife had convinced me to go home since they figured I would start hurting badly soon.

It is almost comical now. I was whimpering in pain on Thursday night each time I had to pass gas. I was doped up on pain medicine, drinking Metamucil and taking stool softeners.

In the midst of this week of facing death in a parking lot and having a large pain in the rear, just to prove that God does indeed have a sense of humor I had a filling crack and had to have it replaced.

This was done Thursday morning so by the time my face un-numbed I was getting my butt numbed. Growing older is fun!

On Friday I used the Sitz Bath I had been told to get by the doctors. Anytime you have to add an attachment to your toilet you know that you are definitely not ever going to be on 90210, your coolness days are over.

The pain had made me constipated too. even with the Metamucil and stool softeners. I was getting worried and not feeling all that great.

This morning I woke up prayed:

"Lord, you are so powerful and can do anything, I would really like to be able to go to the bathroom, could you let that happen?"

Really now, what a great God we have that we can ask for anything. I doubt that a Muslim ever prayed that prayer, he is probably worried he will have one of his 70 raisins taken away.

So, about an hour ago I went to the bathroom, causing me much joy, so much so that I had to come here and type this whole story out...while sitting gingerly on a donut.