I'm not good at pain or discomfort. I can push through it, but I can't pretend that I'm not invisibly, internally getting my ass beat by my own ass. My face shows it, my withdrawn personality, the tremor in my hands. It's obvious. I am perversely proud of myself for pushing through an anal fissure, which my CRS describes as "the most painful thing that can happen in that area of the body", for pushing through 5 weeks of slowly advancing anal agony, and for not retreating to bed until I could no longer keep the tears from falling. (Customer service is no place for a weeping manager. Even though I do work with amazing people who are caring and understanding, the general public is a different story.)
I say "perversely proud" because looking back, I wish I would have done something sooner.... I have health insurance, I should have gone to the doctor, duh. But work was so crazy and busy, and it wasn't SO bad, and it could be just a hemorrhoid (hah), and list of other stupid excuses. The worst, most secret and self-destructive excuse: if it's something serious, there is no way I could take care of it right NOW, with us being so short-staffed. Literally no way! It's a weird combination of ego and fear and denial that gets me to these bad decisions, this twisted thinking.
So here I recline, awkwardly laying on myself (but not THAT part of myself) and trying to type while encouraging blood flow and tissue regrowth in my butthole. The last few days I've been noticing that I feel like a hibernating bear, or something almost dead. Since it hurts to stand after BM, for oh, 4-8 HOURS, I've been spending a lot of time in bed, reclining, reading (almost finished with Neil Gaiman's American Gods - the anniversary edition), making jewelry, praying, zoning out.
Today is the first day in weeks that I haven't cried from pain. I found that standing up for more than a minute or so started spasms, even if I was using the ointment (efedipine and lidocane), for a few hours after BM. I find myself wondering, how late would they allow me to arrive at work?
The last thing I need right now is anxiety about anything, work or home or anything. My main job right now is to relax my tight ass (I never thought of myself that way, but if it's medically true, then I have to wonder) and let the fissure heal so I don't have to get surgery. If it means staying home from work for a few weeks (would that be enough time to do it?) then I will do it. If i have to get surgery, I will have to be home for a while anyway.
This is me not freaking out about finances and money. See, not freaking out!
I'm having this weird sensation right now, looking at my body, and thinking "who ARE you?" I imagine my body is looking back, thinking, "finally she LISTENED!" I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept that this is a condition I am going to have to deal with long-term, and I don't know for how long, and it's going to require a lot of time and energy, and I'm still not sure when I'll be feeling up to sitting and standing like a normal person. I'm kind of floating in an in-between place where everything is shadow and nothing is clear right now. It's a very in-the-moment kind of feeling. 5:30am wake up time? Great, sure, I went to bed at 8:30 last night, why not?
The other big change is my diet. I finally found the magic formula late last week - eat ALL fiber foods: oatmeal and a banana and smoked salmon for breakfast; baked potato with hummus, and an apple with almond butter for lunch; and black beans and kale and sweet potato for dinner. Take colace, for softening. Metamucil is too scratchy coming out. I'm not eating meat (I will eat chicken or fish), or eggs, or dairy in any of it's magical incarnations, or tomatoes, or coffee, or chocolate, or wheat, or stabby nuts, or popcorn (typed it as poopcorn, hahahahhaha beavis, poopcorn) (TP for your bumhole) (Funny how that takes on a whole new meaning right now, hmmm)
I don't have a problem with elimination diets. I see it as a challenge for my culinary skillz. Which are extensive. Not to toot my own horn, but toot. It's really sad that I can't eat my spicy favorites or chocolatey wonderfulness, but I'm experimenting with vegetables as much as possible. Earlier this year I did a couple of Whole 30s, which is a different kind of elimination diet. Before the AF I was eating what I considered healthy food - but now I can't imagine trying to poop out a grassfed burger or whatever - and now I think I'm eating SUPER healthy food.
My day today, since this is a diary, I better get down to it:
Woke up a bit before 5am to pee, had to have BM at 5:30am. Followed by a sitz bath with a bit of epsom salt, some ointment, and got back in bed. Spasms were mild, and manageable, and I was mostly able to relax. When it was time for AJ to get up for work, I tried to get up and fix her breakfast, and failed. The fact of standing sets off the spasms as though the cream was not even there. I was so frustrated, but couldn't be too mad. Once I was back in bed, focused on relaxing, the spasms stopped. Blessed relief.
It was work, managing the spasms. Freedom from pain required stillness, lying down on my side or my stomach. Brief walking trips into the bathroom or kitchen. I applied the ointment 3x already before 1pm, and take another sitz bath. Hah, work called when I was in the bath. I think I used too much epsom salt that time - gave me a weird feeling.
I had to make meals in shifts in order to avoid the spasms. Now, it's 11 hours past the last BM, and the spasms are pretty much finished until my next BM, hopefully not til tomorrow morning so I can get some dishes done and try to make dinner. I miss normal life.
I'm trying to tweak my diet so I reach some "magic poo formula" and create that perfectly smooth, toothpaste consistency. I don't even care anymore; if I need to eat oatmeal and bananas and smoked salmon for breakfast, and kale and sweet potato and smoked salmon for lunch, and mashed squash and quinoa for dinner every night, I will do it. 