College students are supposed to do all sorts of illicit things to their bodies. Our bodies should scream bloody murder for all the things we do to them. I’ll grant that, perhaps, I am guilty of some such things, but when my body started screaming bloody murder, it wasn’t because of it.
My first observation is that finding blood on toilet paper is frightening, like, really frightening. There are places that blood is supposed to come from, and your butt is none of those places.
My second observation: I really do not like the idea of being sick. I spent two months bleeding from somewhere around my ass, convinced that eating more fiber and drinking more water was fixing my problems.
Third observation: the combination of blood and pus smells disgusting. I don’t think I need to tell you anymore.
Fourth observation: Nurses are nice, and some of them don’t seem to get it. Here’s where this goes from a struggle of fear and anxiety to a story of embarrassment and humor. I go to a school whose gay population is pretty high. When I explained to the school’s nurse that I was “bleeding from my ass,” her first question was “Have you had anal intercourse recently?” I had not. Moments later, I had my pants down. Before separating the gluteus muscles to locate the source of the blood she asked again, and in the time between her asking and her asking again I had not in fact had anal intercourse. It seems to me that at Emerson no one would be shy about having anal intercourse, but to each her own. She apologized for embarrassing me with the question, and proceeded to inspect my ass with a shocked sigh.
Turns out, what I had was a pilonidal cyst. Essentially what that is, is that my skin grew over a hair follicle, but no one told the follicle, and that dude just decided to keep producing gross, smelly fluids. These gross smelly fluids had to go somewhere, so a hole opened up along my ass-crack through which the gross smelly fluids made their way onto my toilet tissue.
So I made an appointment with a Colo-rectal surgeon over my spring break. Spring Break! WOOOO!
Fifth Observation: Colo-rectal surgeons’ offices are not the most fun places to spend spring break.
Sixth observation: Colo-rectal surgeons have really seen a lot. I spent about two minutes in the guy’s office, two seconds of which spent with my ass uncovered. “Yep, that’s a pilonidal cyst, pants up.” I needed surgery, with a two month recovery time.
Seventh observation: summer sucks when you spend it recovering from butt-surgery. On May 16th the year of our lord 2008, a fluid filled sac was cut out of me. I have spent the summer since then able to do nothing but heal. Twice a day, for about a month and a half, my poor mother had to shove a tiny piece of gauze into a tiny hole in my giant ass. I can’t imagine her discomfort, but I don’t even have to imagine my own. It was very real.
I guess if there’s a moral to this story, it’s this. Don’t let skin grow over hair on your ass. Also, anal intercourse that I have not had is apparently more embarrassing than having my ass inspected.
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