Hemorrhoids!

I used to say, “I’ve got to take a shit.”

My mother would quip back, “You better leave one instead.”

There are few things better than a good shit—the relief, the sense of accomplishment, the load left that makes one feel ever so much lighter than before.

But when one is constipated, it is no laughing matter.

I had just turned thirty when the childhood joy of shitting became my “what is happening to my body??! It’s just not working right anymore” nightmare.

I used to ask as a child, “Does your poop sink or float?” This was a rather odd thing to ask new visitors to our home, but I thought it was the perfect break the ice, get to know you question.

So when it felt like I was shitting bricks, I knew I had to break the silence. I began asking around.

I thought, best to begin with the older crowd…because old people are always telling you what is going wrong with their body or who went to the doctor and found out they had diverticulosis. So my sixty-five-year-old friend tells me to buy some stool softner from the drug store and in the background, his wife yells, “Tell her to get some Preparation H.”

Preparation H!!? Oh my god. I remember those commercials from growing up in the eighties. Does this mean I have hemorrhoids? What even is a hemorrhoid? I remember the woman in the commercial with a pained look on her face and some animated drawing talking about pain and inflammation. The word was horrifying and the fact that it was shrouded in mystery could only mean it was so bad, that no one could even say it on tv.

Alas, today we live in 2009, when we have porn on the internet and pictures of hemorrhoids with the click of a mouse! But who wants to see small veins around the rectum and anus that have become varicose-dilated and swollen. It was disturbing enough when I saw the blood in my underwear that was not from my beautiful Aunt Flo, but from my sensitive bleeding butt crying red tracks…what is wrong with this picture??! This is only supposed to happen after a hot, rough night of anal sex with your latin lover…not from your virgin hole that has never seen so much as a finger. Do porn stars have this problem? If so, they never seem to talk about it. Although that might be a downer between takes. Chloe talked about her yeast infections in a documentary. I love her candor. But no mention of hemorrhoids. Looks like my life as a porn star really is over now.

I don’t believe in drugs. I even try to limit my intake of Aleve during that time of the month. So I look to alternative medicine. I run in the circles. So I confide in my dear friend the troubles of my delicate little anus. I am not alone! He has these problems too! He tells me to go to Dr. Schulze’s in the Marina and purchase Intestinal Formula #1. (Herbal Formulae That Work! is right on the bottle.) He assures me that will take care of the problem.

I waste no time. Bowel movements that can’t get out are a pressure cooker waiting to go off…I mean, it all has to go somewhere, sometime.

Thank you Dr. Schulze. Within a day, the floodgates are open. The intestines are moving. The dam is broken.