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No pissing. No language. Not me. Not here. Not you. My lonely wart is just a memory now. I wrote before because I was moved by your experience and by your "bleeding" both on and off the page, including the literary 'letting' of a difficult subject to mention let alone write about. Then I had only a reading of AIN on my first ass-PAP ever. More has passed since then, including a little blood. My lesbian surgeon did anoscopy in the office, found only one tiny external lesion and scheduled an OR to biopsy it and to do High Resolution Anoscopy of the anal canal (with an operative microscope). The day came, so I showed up. The staff discovered late that I am a doctor, then apologized for speaking to me the way they did (and I didn't figure that out at all either then or now). One shot of Versed to prepare me for the OR, then into the cavernous tiled Operating Room itself. I have been there before, on both sides of a mask. “ Lie on your stomach on this pillow”, says someone. Six women in faded mismatched light green burqa-scrubs bounce around the room. They clearly are in camoflage in the variegated tiled walls and floor and ceiling of the room; all shades of peaceful pastel green. They dress heavy not to feel the cold. Only eyes are seen under the veils, but no-one looks in my eyes. There is no idleness: each ballerina ant knows precisely, from thousands of prior practice runs exactly what to do, where to go, and where to be. They open my gown in back, so now my bare and pale broad ass is on top of the highest point in the OR, cheeks spread by gravity, if nothing else, a king atop that mountain of hard pillow. A woman announces to the room (pretending to speak to me) that she would now shave my crack, which she referred to as ‘me’ (I mean ‘you’). She was gentle or I was leaving the space-time we had shared. I hear tape tearing, and the surgeon say "I have to tape your cheeks apart". I sniggered, like 'oh the indignity'. It was, it must have been, the cue agreed upon for the second shot of Versed, the one which made me forget everything that followed after it. It was scheduled as conscious sedation, so that I would be up and out of the outpatient surgery quickly, but something happened. I heard later that I "moved too much" and they converted the conscious sedation into general anesthesia. It took all the whole live long day. Meanwhile my mother (84 with Parkinson's waited in the waiting room for six hours with no food, no conversation, no friends and no notification of my status). I am sure she was afraid to move. The bleeding tapers down, for clearly the one suture that she used to sew me up has popped. A little blood oozes, more spread out on my drawers like a hue rubbed off my perianlal skin itself, not a spot or dot like a single wound should make. The pain is just not there, but maybe it does not feel completely right. The only pain I know for sure is in my chest and throat. My chest aches no doubt from being dragged around the OR by those fundamentalist moslem women converts during my unremembered “moving around”, between sedation and the anesthesia that the moving brought on. I hope I didn’t hit them. And my throat is sore, exactly at my larynx, as if my throat were alien in anatomy or they let a third year intubate me, having never seen one done before. The rule should be, as it used to be: “See one. Do one. Teach one.” Not try it first on me. So I can’t sing with the raw spots on my vocal cords, it makes me hurt and wince and cough. My chest wall only hurts though, when I cough or turn while lying down, or bend, or stretch or lean. Well maybe most of the time. It was going to be simple: In and out of both the hospital and my ass. It didn’t work. In fact the whole thing is now suspect, after the unexpected pain, the “moving around”, the three weeks I have to wait for news, and the fact that the ass Pap might just have been wrong. I don’t want it to have been right. Perhaps, most suspect, is that I don’t really want to know. But then I don’t want either to die like Farah Fawcett died of ass cancer. At least they didn’t have to shave her head and I am already bald.
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Well JW I guess if you can say you would like to piss on me my using some "foul" language should not be a big fucking deal. Also, it is my ass and my words...so fuck off!
I thought St. Anthony was the Patron of lost articles. You should have been praying for J. Hoffa. But seriously, I've been through rectal cancer and treatment. It's no calk walk. Keeping a sense of humor is vital. Leave out a few curse words so as not to sound so angry. And BTW I prefer pissing on you. JM
I am having a little bullshit moment folks. Don't mean to let my ego get in the way, but where the hell are my readers? I want to hear from you all. Did I bleed TOO much on the page? (If so, sorry... but get use to it since I plan to bleed even more. After all, I simply do not write; I vent a vein. So read me damnit and stop pissing me off.
Richard, I feel for you, man. I just went through a similar odyssey. My partner and I fought HPV for years, and just a year or so ago my doctor found a cancerous lesion. He set me up for a biopsy and (unknown to me at the time) removed the whole lesion rather than just biopsy it. So far, no recurrence. But we are watching. And waiting.
Hugs accepted even if I don't you..but we it seems we know each other through a kinship that transcends the need standard societal need for a formal introduction. The really bothersome thing is the snickers at my "home" AA group. I heard the words:"It is just your ass man." Thanking God for restraint of pen and tongue I did not turn around and see the woman who made the comment. I prefer to live in ignorance of knowledge. But she did strike something in me. IT IS MY MY ASS MAN; IT IS MY ASS. No consequences in the AA pantheon are permitted. So self-pity was flipped into anger since, after all, it is MY ass man, it is my ass.
Richard Ferri
Renzo We share the unique and often unwanted circumstance of being both a patient and a healer (I know I often times suck as a patient, but I also know that far and wide I am a really good healer, and I sense you are also.) I find it nearly impossible to hope between the two roles. It makes my soul too schizophrenic. I often feel like some comic actor in dual role jumping from one end of the stage to the other taking to myself. On the theatrical stage it may good for a cheesy laugh. However, in an OR surround by people dressed like terrorists, and an anascope up your ass the humor fades quickly. But all this "bad care" holds me together in a strange way. If I can make thing even just "less bad" then maybe I have done something helpful. Maybe you have too.
August 8, 2010