The Surgery. Part 7 - Dr. Colon

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Part 5
Part 6

I was nervous about going to see Dr. Colon for my hemorrhoids. I saw my general doc during my first outbreak, and he didn't even touch my butt. He just looked at the issue and confirmed that I had hemorrhoids. Still, this was a surgeon and I was scared that she was going to stick her finger in there and root around. Craig said not to worry, that she'd probably just take a peek like my general doc and then set up the surgery.

On the day of my appointment I signed in at the desk, and was eventually called into the back. A male nurse brought me into an exam room and had me sit next to the computer desk in a chair. He took my medical history and asked a bunch of questions. I looked around the room and saw an exam table and racks of instruments. I also saw a gigantic sink and what looked like a scope in there. I was wondering when they were going to have me change into a gown or something, but he never even mentioned it. Maybe she wasn't even going to look at my butt?

Then the nurse said "Okay, I'm going to check with Dr. Colon to see if you need an enema."

Dear lord, WHAT? "Excuse me, did you say I need an enema?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you'll need one, but if you do I can give it to you. Or if you'd prefer one of the female nurses can help you with it. I'll go find out - be right back"

Well that's just peachy. If I had known that this might happen, I would have preferred to give myself an enema at home without this guy watching. I guess that's what the big sink in the room is for??! Ack! I started to panic a little bit. Like I said, I'm not good with medical procedures and if he was talking enema then without a doubt, Dr. Colon had plans to get all up in my business.

Mr. Nurse came back in and said I didn't need an enema. He said that Dr. Colon would be right in, and he left again. I was still dressed in my clothes, and no mention of a gown yet. This was all very weird, and my anxiety went up another notch.

Dr. Colon came in and we discussed my problems. Then she said she was going to examine me. Mr. Nurse moved the table so that the bottom half of it was pointing towards the ground. It made a little padded shelf and they had me kneel on that. Then they had me bend over so that I was lying on my stomach on the table while kneeling. Then Mr. Nurse held a sheet behind me and said "Okay, now pull your pants and underwear down."

This was so weird.

So I did as I was told, and he draped the sheet over my bare behind. Then they rotated the table so that my head was down and my bottom was up. Let me tell you, this was the most vulnerable and humiliating experience I've yet to have in front of a doctor. Not one that I ever want to repeat, either.

Like I suspected, Dr. Colon raised the sheet and used her finger to do an exam. It was pretty uncomfortable, but bearable. When she was done I thought "Whew, glad that's over." but she was far from finished. She then got some sort of cone-shaped instrument with a light on it, and looked inside my butt.

I would rather have another blueberry butt outbreak than have another rectal exam. It hurt, hurt hurt. She was twisting this big long piece of metal in there, in an area that wasn't meant to have big long pieces of metal! Then she starts showing Mr. Nurse things, saying "See that there, uh huh, that's one, and there too...mumble mumble...yes, do you see that?"

Are you kidding me? Stop using my rectum as a blackboard and finish up already!

The pain was starting to get to me, and even with my head down I got dizzy and broke out into a sweat. I said "Are you almost done? This is pretty painful and I don't know how much more I can stand."

"Almost done...hang in there." she replied. "Take some deep breaths. That should help." Mr Nurse offered.

Hey, you know what would help? Removing that thing from my butt!!

I was really in pain, and things were rapidly going downhill. I was going to pass out if they didn't stop, so I started to squirm and stammer "Um, ow... I ...Uh..please..."

She must have sensed that I had enough, because she removed the instrument and gave my butt a courtesy wipe. Then Mr. Nurse said cheerily "Okay! All done! You can pull up your pants now."

I needed to lie down on my back as soon as possible so I didn't faint. I yanked my pants up, and as he was rotating the table back to a flat position I threw myself onto it in a panic, almost falling on the floor. Mr. Nurse said "Oh, hey, easy there. You okay?" I said "I will be, please just let me lie here for a few moments." "Okay, no problem, this happens sometimes, don't worry about it." Yeah, I'm sure it does.

When I had recovered sufficiently I got up and sat back in the chair. Dr. Colon made her diagnosis of external thrombosed hemorrhoids and said that she could do surgery to remove the internal hemorrhoids and the skin tags, which would prevent me from having another episode. I told her about the ablation and tube insert surgery, and she said she could work with Dr. OB and do it at the same time. She said that I would have to be in bed for a week afterwards to prevent pressure on my butt, and that it would hurt to poop for two weeks. She said that I will be in considerable pain after the surgery, and I asked if it would hurt worse than one of my episodes. She said "Probably not." Good to know.

Since I have to bed in bed for a week, I wanted to schedule the surgery for the week of Christmas because Craig will be off of work, and the lab will be shut down. I know that will make for a crappy holiday, but I won't be missing work and Craig will be able to take care of me, so it should all work out. Time to finally schedule this thing!

However, when I told Dr. OB when I wanted to do the surgery, he said "Oh, that's not going to work."

Part 8 - Complications