Be Careful What You Wish For

If today's follow-up visit with the colorectal surgeon is any indication, the median age for his patients is about 75.  The good news about that is I figure my behind looked pretty darn perky by comparison.

As much as I hated to have to do it, because I was SO SURE I could handle a little pain, I confessed to the doctor that the hemorrhoid surgery was, indeed, much worse than I had expected, and he more or less said "I told you so." He WAS interested to hear what made it so much worse to me than the tram flap and bilateral mastectomy surgery (let's see, I don't know, um, maybe RELENTLESS, UNENDING PAIN), how long I was in serious pain (my worst days were days 4 and 5 after the surgery, after which I finally felt like I might survive it after all), and whether it was worth it or not (it was, in hindsight - pahahahaha!).  I also let him know that his prescription for hydrocodone wasn't worth much, but the stash of oxycodone I had on hand was awwwwwwesome. My husband said it was too bad the doctor had no real concept of just how high my pain tolerance actually is, because it says a lot about how painful the procedure was that I needed (and used every bit of) the oxycodone. I told him the upside of the whole thing was it gave me plenty of fodder for my blog, to which he said, "You BLOGGED about this?" Yep, I said, and I was brutally honest. Do I dare send him the link and let him read for himself? Hmmmm....

Of course, he had to do an exam. And of course, the room was warm and stuffy (Trailer Town, after all) AND, since stress seems to trigger my warm (not hot) flashes, naturally, I was sweaty and so stuck to the paper covering on the exam table. I peeled myself off the paper and laid back, which is actually a complicated maneuver that, due to my tram flap surgery, requires me to hold onto my bent knees and roll back. Today, I had the added obstacle of (a) being stuck to the paper and (b) having to work around a large, stiff paper blanket. As I rolled back and landed on the pillow, some combination of rubbery plastic pillow and rubbery table covering made a duck sound on impact. Now, that stopped me in my tracks, as I never anticipated a duck sound to come from underneath my head. 

The doctor apparently had expected me to lie back and turn on my side in a matter of a second or two, which seems like a completely unreal expectation of one of his patients, given my earlier observation about their median age. He said, "I need you on your left side" as he gave me a hand motion (again with doctors giving me hand motions!) that was much like the one you would use to get a dog to roll over. At that point, I felt compelled to tell him and the nurse that I heard a duck noise under my head, but since they didn't hear any such thing, it just served to make me feel really, really stupid.

Which made me feel stressed.

Which made me have a warm flash.

Which made me tense up (along with the fact that I was about to be violated with a rubber glove).

In conclusion? Not only did I have the perkiest ass in the office, it was also tight enough at that point to have cracked a walnut. But he pronounced me to be nearly as good as new (or maybe as good as I was ever going to get?) and, thus endeth our professional relationship. He's really going to miss me....