Ripping Me a New One: The Triumph of the Asshole or A Study In Erin's Absence

Today I Hate: My period. Why? Because the post I was supposed to post is now being posted however many days after I originally said I was going to post it.
Today I Love: Posting the goddamn post. Why? Oh, just read the goddamn post.

  Infected.
  Anal.
  Fissure.

  I want you to take a moment to say that out loud to yourself. I don't care where you are, at work, in bed, on public transport, just do it.

  ............................

  Did you feel it?
  "Infected anal fissure" is something that sounds nearly as horrifying coming out of your mouth as it feels trying to shit when you have one. And I should know because for the last eight months I've had a number of them.
  What started out as my usual hemorrhoid issue acting up quickly turned into a thrombosed hemorrhoid (when a blood clot forms within a hemorrhoid. Much more fun to say aloud than to experience) and took a turn for the even worse until I was stuck lying on one side or the other all day every day with the exception of a short walk if my body allowed and trips to the kitchen to heat up food. And the bathroom, of course.

  For eight months.

  There were (and still are) other health problems I was trying to juggle at the same time making things even more difficult but to keep some of my privacy and to prevent this post from becoming an ill written (ha ha) novella, I will stick to one thing and that thing is my asshole.
  Your asshole ripping open is something most people seem to try not to think about which is understandable but when it happens to you you find it is impossible to think of anything but(t) and before you know it you find yourself writing on a blog about it. Imagine not being able to walk up a hill or stairs without feeling it reopening, bit by bit, with every step. Or not being able to go anywhere or hang out with friends because you have to do a sitz bath every single time you go to the bathroom because even pee irritates it and it is impossible to carry around the amount of ointments you have to apply afterwards. Or reaching down to apply one of those ointments to feel not the skin of a human but that of a reptile and finding yourself wondering if David Icke really is right about lizard people (a true horror). Or not being able to sit or stand or wear pants. And let us not forget the fun surprise you get every time you go to the bathroom: whether you are going to have A) explosive diarrhea (which also irritates/creates anal fissures and hemorrhoids) B) a poop too hard to pass without ripping the fissures open again C) bleeding, either from the fissure, internal and/or external hemorrhoids, or something else or D) All of the above!!!!!! :D
  Anal fissures--especially infected ones--are really beyond words is all I'm trying to get across. Being able to go to the bathroom and just poop is something I think most everyone takes for granted.
  I tried a round of antibiotics which did improve the state of my butthole some and help with that purple-black reptilian skin, but every five to seven days, without a doubt, no matter what I did, my butt would rip me a new one and I would find myself grabbing onto the roll of toilet paper trying not to scream as I desperately tried to poop.
  Then, as if all that wasn't bad enough, one day early last month I was having some extreme discomfort in my belly and looked in the mirror to find I resembled a woman four months into pregnancy (which I most definitely was not). After a clean ultrasound I was beginning to consider sticking a pin in my stomach to relieve the "I'm going to explode" feeling so I could eat and move again.
  No one could find out why I wasn't healing up and after a month and a half of being able to eat no more than two very small meals a day and dropping weight I don't have to drop, I walked into my doctor's office (after yet another round of antibiotics which helped a little more though with the same end result) and told her I think I have an ulcer.
  I came to this conclusion after reading up on symptoms because while most applied one really stuck out to me: the unexplained back pain that some patients with ulcers experience and that perfectly described my unexplained back pain. Putting all that together with the two plus two of my life my lovely, fantastic doctor didn't even blink when I told her.
  I have been on PPIs (stomach acid suppressants) for four days now and have already experienced improvements in all areas. I can't decide which is best: being able to go for miles long walks again, traverse hills, work my way up to eating real meals, not having reptile skin, being able to skip a sitz bath here and there, start up ballet again, sit for any amount of time, actually looking forward to pooping (!), feeling so much better that I FORGOT to put on an ointment last night, run again (even if only for a few seconds), wear pants and underwear again for realistic going-out amounts of time, or that I can write a run-on sentence THIS LONG about all the symptoms I have that have improved!

  It feels truly magical.

  And right now, though it's still a ways away, I am so looking forward to being able to walk the four miles up and down hills to the grocery store deli area where I most love to sit and write, especially letters to my pen pal (whom I desperately need to catch up with).

  I know what I will be doing this summer. ;)

  I suppose you might find it weird or gross that I'm talking about this stuff online or at all for that matter and that's okay because sometime during all this mess I was sitting hunched over on the toilet with my head in my hands in agonizing pain when something in the recycling caught my eye. On the packaging from one of my hemorrhoid wipes it said, "You are not alone" (followed by a registered trademark symbol because nothing says "you are not alone" like a trademark symbol) and gave the statistics of adults in the U.S. who get hemorrhoids.
  Dear God, I remember thinking, we can talk about shoving anything and everything up our asses for sex but we can't talk about hemorrhoids?! That's what's gross?!! There is something severely wrong with my culture.

Today I Hate: The heat.
Today I Love: ORGANIZING AND CLEANING AGAIN, OH MY GOD.

Hello everyone! Just here to say I have a post I plan on putting up tomorrow (I know, it's been awhile!) but am unable to do so now because it needs to be edited and I simply cannot do that yet for a number of reasons.
So, tomorrow.
'Bye for now,
-The Gloom