A Pain in the Butt

January 1, 2017

If you're uncomfortable with talking about butts, you may want to skip this section, there's a little TMI happening here.

During my first infusion, I became constipated from all the different meds. I didn't think much of it, I knew I strained but I had other things to worry about it so it wasn't something I was concerned it.

That is, until I woke up in the middle of the night on December 30th, in extreme pain. My butt was throbbing. Like actually throbbing and I had no idea what was happening to me. I had never experienced a pain like this before, and certainly never in my butt! I was awake the entire night in pain trying to google what was going on.

I finally decided it must be a hemorrhoid. And so began the endless reading of hemorrhoid blogs. I must have read about 1000 peoples butt problems and how they dealt with it. Based on the reading, I decided to try sitting in a bath a warm water. This helped but only temporarily.

I spent the next 24+ hours, in and out of the warm baths and trying to ice my rear end. I got some weird looks from my cat as I laid on the floor, legs in the air, and an ice pack held up to my butt.

None of that helped. I was in so much pain. On New Years Day, my parents came and got me and took me to urgent care. I sat, uncomfortably, in the waiting area, praying that the doctor wasn't some young attractive doctor that I was about to show my butt to.

My prayers didn't work. He was young, and quite good looking, and I had to show him my butt hole. If I was going through the cancer ordeal and already a hot mess in life, I probably would've been embarrassed but at this point, all I could do was laugh.

He did diagnose it as a hemorrhoid and prescribed me some cream for it. I found out hemorrhoids aren't that unusual. Most of my mom friends said they got them during their pregnancies. It's definitely not something I'd wish on anybody - the pain was unbearable.

About a week later, the pain was mostly gone but unfortunately the experience slightly traumatized me and now I'm obsessed and slightly scared of going to the bathroom. My investment of prunes has become comical.