A Finger In My Arsehole

Yesterday was the dreaded day. The day when I, well, my insurance company really, payed someone to put their finger in my arsehole…all in the name of healing. Now, I realize that I haven’t written in awhile about what I’ve been doing to manage my chronic pain issues, which in many ways, became the focus of this blog last October when my life was torn asunder by a multitude of unexpected diagnoses. And I realize I probably could have found someone on Craigslist or some other internet site who was more than willing to stick their horny little finger in my rectum for free-hell, maybe they’d even pay me for the pleasure of doing so (but that gets into all sorts of murky waters and possibly illegal issues and who can afford to lose the job they don’t have?). But now dear reader, I’m back at it-giving you a glimpse into a world hopefully you’re grateful that you aren’t living in.

Seriously though (I have a really bad habit of joking about the things that scare me the most) I had to undergo a humiliating and excruciatingly painful rectal exam by a Colon Surgeon before I could even be cleared to have someone paid to put their finger in my bum! Perhaps I’ll write about that procedure some other day, when I’ve recovered a bit from the shame of it. Oh, and speaking, err, writing about shame, my early childhood abuse experiences left my anything but ready for yesterday’s procedure!

However, I feel I am at my wits end. Sitting, hell, sleeping on my back has become such a source of pain that I can no longer do many of the things I formerly enjoyed in life like riding a horse or a bike (for fuck’s sake riding my partner is even a rarity!). Long, rambling car rides, writing for hours on end…anything that requires me to sit on my beautiful ass for more than 45 minutes to 2 hours (on the best of days and a heavy dose of pain killers) is just about out of the questions. Fuck, I’ve even been woken up from the little sleep I manage to get because the pressure on my rectal region is too intense…from a friggin” mattress!

I haven’t written about this yet either (although I swore I did…that’s the problem when you are always writing in your head…you tend to forget what you actually put down on paper, or cyber paper), but over the summer I was diagnosed with Pudendal Neuralgia by a specialist in New Hampshire who was fairly adamant that the only way to relieve my pain, if there was even a way to relieve it, was to have MAJOR surgery, which would involve two cuts deep inside my each side of my vagina to, “vaporize the ligaments which (are thought to) entrap my Pudendal Nerves”. This too, is a blog for another time, but in a nutshell, the doctor hardly evoked confidence from me, as he could not, or would not, answer most of the questions we had for him and he repeatedly stated that this procedure worked best, when it worked at all, on people who had this problem with a short on set; in other words, not so much with people like me who can easily remember being 5 years old and unable to sit without severe pain!

In the months that have followed the bittersweet and very uncomfortable 8ish hour drive to New Hampshire, I have received an intense amount of pressure to have the surgery and to not have the surgery. I left the doctor’s office in tears, all but refusing to have it done, unless it became all but impossible for me to sit, at all. I figured I’ve managed to cope with it, on so many levels, for the better part of my life, why the fuck would I want to undergo an incredibly invasive procedure, having yet another man I don’t trust violate my body once again, to have my vagina sliced open, to be on bed rest for roughly two months? And if all goes well after that, have to wean myself back into sitting at 5-10 minute increments and wait possibly 2 years for results which might never happen??? The whole concept seemed ludicrous to me!

The research I did, which in and of itself, was a difficult process (try Googling Pudendal Neuralgia and see what you come up with!) also helped confirm my belief that surgery, at least at this point in my life, even if, as my mom likes to declare, my insurance should pay for all or most of it, is not the right choice for me. So, that is what led me here…to having a finger in my rectum.

Here I was, again with Karen, my Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist. She’s the blessing from the universe who helped stretch out my vagina (although I may have used a pseudonym for her in earlier blogs, Karen is her bona fide first name) when I was suffering the worst of the Vulvadynia and Pelvic Floor Dysfunction (see earlier blogs). Now, after being cleared by the butt doctor, Karen was going to stick one of her slender, gloved fingers into my rectum in the hopes that doing this-for who knows, maybe a few sessions, maybe several months, would be enough to release the tension on my Pudendal Nerves and thereby avoid any need at all for surgery.

Although I was scared out of my mind, wanting desperately to clench my ass so tight that she couldn’t do anything at all, and spent the week leading up to my visit with her dreading THE DAY, even going so far as to make “jokes” on Sunday about how I was going to have a finger in my ass on Monday, there is no one in the world I would let do this, other than Karen. The amount of trust it takes, probably for anyone, to be curled up in a fetal position while someone lubes you up with Slippery Stuff and as gently as possible inserts a gloved digit into your poop shoot, at least in a medical setting, is tremendous. Now, this doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed some forms of consensual anal play in my day, but the very nature of it being done in an attempt to correct a medical problem, well, for me, that changes everything! That and the fact that the Ass Surgeon who had me bend over a rectal table for her exam, about broke my tailbone in THE MOST PAINFUL RECTAL EXAM EVER!!! I was none too keen on having anyone back there in say the next three millennia or so. Then again, my little air cushion that I bring with me everywhere I might want to sit, isn’t helping much and I’m not too keen on surgery either. Pasta fungul!

And so, after a plethora of questions…yes she knows what Pudendal Neuralgia is, yes she’s treated lots of women with it, no she doesn’t think I should have surgery if it isn’t what I want, and so on, we finally got down to the butt business. And as long as I kept reminding myself why I was there, why this was happening and that I needed to breathe (and of course, resorted to my defense mechanism of continuous questioning) it wasn’t that bad. That is, as long as she stayed away from my tailbone. If Karen’s finger was anywhere near my tailbone I wanted to projectile (vomit?) heave her out of my areshole it hurt so much! And as with my vaginal stretching, I was inexplicably tighter on one side (this time my left) than the other.

The entire procedure lasted maybe five minutes and that was that. She removed her finger as she promised she would and left the room so I could wipe the remainder of the lube of my rump and get dressed in privacy, although after that ordeal does privacy really matter? What I would latter find out was really the worst part of the whole finger in ass process was the most horrific smelling fart I’ve ever released in my life about a half hour after I left Karen’s office, enroot to my therapist’s office; and believe me, I’ve impressed some guys with what I can unleash! That and an almost uncontrollable need to shit every two hours or so. And I’m not talking about a little bowel movement here and there. I mean, the hardcore, been out drinkin’ all night, or Thanksgiving shits-the kind you worry could break the damn toilet and certainly leave a trail of evidence behind when you flush! All friggin’ day and most of the night long I crapped into the porcelain god. My bum began to bleed from wiping so much and even though we’ve stocked up on what I thought was enough toilet paper to last into 2011, I’m afraid if I keep seeing Karen (and it is supposed to me twice a week starting next week) and my bowels keep moving like this, we’ll need to buy a storage unit just to hold toilet paper! She has such tiny fingers too and she only used the very tip, I don’t get it. I will definitely have to ask her about this before she does any butt work next week.

Criminy I hope this is a better idea than slicing open my vagina! Ugh! Just re-reading that last sentence makes me want to vomit all over my keyboard…yes, yes a finger in my ass sounds much better than cutting open my vagina any day! I saw the movie Seven, and while not quite the same thing, it still conjures up images of the razor embedded leather cock harness. I’m fairly certain that’s a sign I’m not ready for surgery even if I have to shit for hours after seeing Karen!

My Bathroom, My Space Station

When I was I kid, around the age of eight or ten-old enough to know it was never going to work, I would sometimes hideout in our downstairs bathroom. Always the downstairs one, never the upstairs one. Bad things happened in the upstairs bathroom, or at least they did when my dad lived there. And when he finally left, the memories of what he did left an indelible stain on all the bathroom surfaces, especially the shower, so I never sought refuge there.

The ugly blue, beige, brown down stairs bathroom, as I remember it, was a different story. Long before it became a place to surreptitiously pop my zits, I would sometimes delude myself into believing it was my secret, savior space station. When life was at its lowest of lows, or I couldn’t starve myself anymore, or I wasn’t in the mood to entertain suicidal thoughts, or maybe I just wanted to get away but it was too (cold, rainy, dark, scarry, whatever) to run away, I would lock myself in the bathroom.

Then I would begin my secret rescue ritual. I’d sit on the toilet, with the lid closed, put my youngish left hand on the yellow handle of the plunger, which always sat faithfully next to the toilet, close my eyes, maneuver the magical handle forward in an intricate pattern, and begin my commands to the space station as we prepared for lift-off. Depending upon whether or not I thought I would be heard by anyone else in the house, I would either speak my commands aloud or murmur them under my breath; but I had this fervently held belief that if I wanted to be rescued, I must say the words out loud. I have no idea where I got that notion from, but I believed it, heart and soul, despite the fact that my bathroom space station rescue missions never worked. And believe me, I tried these rescue missions for far longer than I am willing to admit here!

I am reminded of my bathroom space station tonight because one of my deepest fears seems to be coming true-that once I no longer am able to maintain control over the ironclad, zillion-times sealed walls aptly confining my tears, my anguish, I will never be able to do anything else but drown in the mire.

I started crying uncontrollably on Monday, when Thomas, my most favorite of our now four cats, escaped from the deck. I hadn’t noticed he was missing and hence had no idea how long he was gone. Stupid me! I thought for sure THIS TIME I had managed to cat proof the fucking deck! I was beside myself with fear and panic that he might get hit by a car or kidnapped and cooked by our motherfucking neighbor (yes, I hate him and he rents a restaurant next to us and hates us as well, so it is possible that he would do such a thing for revenge!).

I spent what seemed like forever looking for him, hell, I even prayed to God to bring him back and offered up all the other cats in exchange, before I apologized for praying to a God I don’t believe in and offered up my prayers to the universe instead (yeah, I was a wee bit of a basket case)! When the fat fuck of a cat finally tried sneaking up behind me, my eyes did not believe my face and it wasn’t until I tried hoisting all 25 pounds of him into my arms that I realized he was truly alive and safe and home. And I lost it. I was sobbing and shaking. I mean snot pouring out of my nose, gulping sobs that caused the people going to the restaurant to gawk at me. I was clutching Thomas so hard the poor cat was gasping for air and I didn’t even notice, my crying was that uncontrollable.

When I finally got us both inside, I collapsed on the stairs, still hysterically crying while my seemingly bewildered cat, who was probably expecting to be locked in the bathroom for escaping, tried to console my by rubbing up against me, purring his head off…until he got bored with me and I finally got a grip on myself.

Except that I never really did.

What felt like the fatal loss of my most favorite animal companion ever, appears to be the final push that catapulted me into a chasm of pain I have been doing lifelong, mind boggling acrobatics to avoid peering into, never mind confronting head on. And now I feel as if I am spiraling, otherworldly, out-of-control, guts heaving, can’t focus on anything else, where the fuck did this come from, into something I intuitively feel is only going to get uglier the farther I fall in to it.

Even though I finally stopped crying external tears when Thomas became bored with consoling me, I haven’t stopped the deluge of internal tears that began falling that Monday. Now it is Friday and the taunt gossamer threads of denial which previously held my lonely life precariously together are obliterated by bitterness and acrid tears. I feel little but resentment towards my partner (?) who is rarely here and even when he is, does little more than offer physical proximity to me. I feel trapped and isolated living here in “the Valley” and enraged at my dumbass self for ever suggesting that we move here. I feel friendless in an area where I once had several friends. I feel in constant pain that few take seriously and no one (that I don’t pay) wants to hear about. I feel sleep deprived from the constant nightmares that keep me up, tossing and turning all night, while my partner slumbers on, oblivious to my nocturnal thrashings.

I feel my teeth ache from the spontaneous outburst of tears right before he came home from work today. From the crying almost all the way to couples therapy-our big Friday night date, and the crying on the way home, and when we got home. And on the bathroom floor, after he fell asleep. Which is what reminded me, as I sat sobbing and rocking myself on the chintzy bathmat, of my useless bathroom space station, and the fact that as an adult, if that is indeed what I am, no matter where I live, I still try to keep the plunger on the left hand side of the toilet-something I never thought about until tonight.

I guess my hope that I can rescue myself dies harder than I thought it would. And the pathway out of hell, or healing as my therapist likes to call it, looks like it’s gonna take a whole lot more out of me than I ever bargained for, if it doesn’t wreck me first.