What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

There are days, much like today, when I think I just can't take this anymore! When I feel the crushing of the cruel world breaking every bone in my body. And then I remember the spring of 2002 and tell myself Hey, you! You can get through this! This is nothing... you survived a hemorrhoidectomy. Remember?!

First of all, I didn't know what the hell hemorrhoids were. All I knew was that several months prior I had a baby and since then something just wasn't right. In the tail end, I mean.

Uh, Doc... there seems to be something going on. Or, uh, out. Something coming out. And there's pain. Quite a bit of that, actually. And once in a while some blood. Which normally wouldn't concern me, seeming as I'm a girl and all, but this blood isn't coming from the proper opening. Know what I mean?

And that's how I learned about hemorrhoids. And the fact that they are nothing to mess around with. Literally. Don't try pulling on those things, they ain't budging.

Then I learned about Tucks Medicated Pads and suddenly I was 80 years old, shuffling around in my house slippers and looking forward to my bi-weekly appointment at the beauty salon.

Then I remembered how once, when we were little, my Mom cracked up laughing because my Dad accidently used Vicks VapoRub on his hemmorhoids mistakenly thinking he was dipping into the Vaseline, and boy, did that get his attention, so then I asked the doctor if hemmorhoids were genetically passed on like cellulite and stretch marks, because if that was the case I was really getting the short end of the DNA stick. And then I threw out any Vicks I had in the house, just in case.

I put up with the pain and awkwardness for as long as I could. Then my handy dandy HMO granted me relief in the form of "Outpatient Hemmorhoidectomy" and I thought phew! Except I didn't fully comprehend what a hemmorhoidectomy included because if I had, I would've kept those suckers.

First of all, you can't be embarrassed or shy. Because they make you lay down face first on a table naked. Then the table goes way up in the air so the doctor and assisting nurse don't have to hunch over to get to your heiney. Then they turn on a super bright light. So there you are, lying ass up five feet in the air with a spotlight on your bum.

And then the nurse says something along the lines of we're going to numb the area now. And really, shame on them for not restraining the patient.

First, you feel too many hands spreading your cheeks. Which, in my opinion, is wrong. Because as I was laying there I was thinking how many times have I had numerous strange people pulling at the naked flesh of my rear end? and I couldn't remember one. (Albeit, college was a blur.)

And then the nurse injects the area.

Just sit in that for a minute, will you.

Injects. The. Area.

As in, the area the hemmorhoids are located in.

Do you know how many nerve endings are located in the area? Tons. Millions. A gazillion thousand billion. Hey, just for kicks, if you're not doing anything tonight, ask your partner to lightly prick you with the end of a safety pin right there and see if you can handle it. Or if you flip yourself off the table while round house kicking the face of the nurse holding the needle. Just saying.

Thankfully, the area is numbed quickly. And then the doctor and nurse happily set about spreading and slicing, but you won't care because you can't feel a thing.

Then you'll drive home giggling because *awkward* someone just had their hands all over your butt and you'll stop off and pick up your pain medication and take it right in the pharmacy because the nurse took you by the shoulders and stared intently into your eyes while saying, "For the love of all that is kind and good: do NOT miss your pain medication. Not even by fifteen seconds."

And a half hour later you'll understand how right she was because you have never felt so much pain in all of your life and you'll want to take all your pain medication right that very minute. Along with a bottle of whiskey. Birthing a rhinoceros without an epidural while hanging upside down as someone's slipping slivers of bamboo under your fingernails feels better than the pain of a diced rectum. Trust me on this.

And then. Oh, you know what's coming.

Eventually you have to do this thing called have a bowel movement which might as well be called pass a razor sharp anvil through one of the most tender openings of your body. Six jugs of prune juice, eleven stool softeners and something called ColonClenz picked up at the local GNC and I found myself hanging on to my dear life via the walls of my bathroom alternating between pleading with God to just let me die and begging Him not to let me die, because hello! Far too many people have seen my pasty white rump roast already.

For a week I slipped in and out of consciousness while lying on my couch. Face down, of course. Did you know that if you sneeze it really does feel like you'll blow out your uh, area?

But I survived.

I don't know how, but I did. And if I can survive a hemmorhoidectomy then I can survive anything life throws at me. But if those suckers ever come back then they're stuck with me because I would never, in my right mind, do that again.

And no matter how nicely you ask, no, I will not show you the scars.