about a week before my surgery my fissure stopped hurting for a few days and i thought to myself "self...why am i doing this again?" and then my fissure reminded me...I figure if it hasn't healed yet, its not going to. I think you're making a good decision and will love the results. I had a hard time before my surgery...kinda worked myself into a frenzy I guess you could say, thinking about all the things that could go wrong.

may 3?
that's my pre-op...
i went to the surgeon and he said that sucker's chronic and it's not gonna heal on its own...my LIS is scheduled for may 10 and i can't wait!
i'm taking so many pain killers right now that it's making me nauseated...i hate taking drugs (except the morphine after my last surgery--that was quite nice, i must say)
good luck on your LIS and hopefully we'll all be whistling dixie soon! :)

lol maybe we should've all gotten together to get a group rate on LIS :) But seriously, thanks guys, it's good to hear everyone's experiences, and yeah Brit I know what you mean about sometimes having the "why am I doing this again?" feeling. I'm definitely thinking paranoid thoughts of all the things that could go wrong, but I think (ok more like hope) that's only natural. Like you, every once in a while my fissure gives me a not-so-gentle reminder that it's still there, and then vanishes for a while before making yet another unwelcome return. Been going through that pattern for a year now so I guess I'm just kind of a sucker or plain chicken. I think I recall that you went through the same for like half a year or something, definitely got more guts than I do!
Hopefully we will all get some kind of resolution soon. It's definitely good to have some LIS "company" too :) Steve, hopefully you'll get to "join the fun" after you see your CRS!
BTW Dee I don't think I've heard the phrase "whistling dixie" since I left the midwest :) In fact that probably applies to the word "dixie" as a whole haha. Reminds me, my dad and I used to go fishing at a lake called Little Dixie about 30 minutes outside of Columbia.

Dee,
Can you sit OK at your job?????????

well, there isn't really a super comfortable position, but sitting is actually one of the better positions for me...i sometimes wake up in pain and go to the computer chair and sit (and rock--i don't know why but it helps)...i'm not sure but i think it has something to do with the pressure, because some of the absolute worst pain i get is when I'm standing up or walking
i usually am in pretty bad pain for the first few hours of work, but it subsides by midnight most of the time--that's why i don't think lis will be too bad--if i can stand this stuff surely i'll make it through the surgery ok...
what's getting to me now is the nausea from taking too many painkillers i think...damned if i do, damned if i don't...
i'm going to ask the er doc tonight if she thinks it would be beneficial to get another blood transfusion because my last cbc showed my hemoglobin at 9 (normal is 12-16)...that was after a transfusion of 2 units of red blood cells--i'm wondering if i should have another transfusion because isn't that what's supposed to heal the fissure? getting the blood to it? that's what those creams (nitroglycerin and the like) are doing, right--drawing blood to the fissure...well, what if i just don't have enough blood right now to get to the fissure...even if i have surgery the fissure still has to heal itself...am i totally missing something?

Could you just take Tylenol for pain? That is what I did for one of my surgeries (not butt).

tylenol's not strong enough for me unfortunately...when i need some sort of painkiller i start with ibuprofen then work my way up with darvocet as my last ditch effort (along with some valllium...) it takes a while but eventually i'm ok...i'm trying not to get addicted and hope that once the fissure is gone i can go back to aspirin for headaches and ibuprofen for most anything else--i could totally see myself getting hooked on morphine if they ever gave me any (that was the most amazing painkiller anybody has given me--that and dilauded which i was given once on a trip to the er...both by injection
believe me i really wish the pain woud go away with the tylenol]

Hey Dee, I wouldn't worry too much, darvocet is actually a pretty weak opiate :) If you can get by with darvocet then you're still "toughing it out" pretty good as far as painkillers go. A number of studies have suggested that opiate dependency is actually lower amongst patients taking them for chronic pain than amongst the general population (i.e., it is much easier to get addicted to opiates when using them for fun than it is when legitimately using them for pain). Likewise, some studies have drawn similar conclusions for benzodiazepines like Valium.
I have a chronic pain condition that I've sometimes taken codeine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, or etodolac for (never more than one kind at a time though), and there's no way anything OTC would provide relief for it. For better or worse, opiates really are the gold standard for nearly any type of pain.
I got morphine in the ER before too and know what you mean, I went from agony to cloud nine in just a few seconds :)

P.S.
In case you're curious here's the opiate strength chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiate_comparison
Darvocet is dextropropoxyphene which is one of the weakest opiates. Ultimately it's the total dose that matters, but still, I'd say you're still being pretty safe compared to most people with chronic pain if that's the strongest thing you take :)