'Roid Rage!

Most of my writer friends know of my troubles down under because I’ve regaled them with stories about my little anal hitchhikers. I’m slightly obsessed with my hemorrhoids, I'll be the first one to admit.

But mostly, I figure if you’ve got an issue that once almost caused you to shove the ice blocks in your freezer - normally reserved for your children’s lunchboxes - into your lower orifice, you might as well get some literary mileage out of it.

If you can’t laugh at your own put-upon-pooper, what can you laugh at…I ask you?

As anyone with a similarly disenfranchised ass can attest, when those little buggers are angry, the pain they can cause is beyond the ability to comprehend. I have been awakened from a sound sleep, suddenly feeling like something untoward happened to my rear orifice while I slumbered - like a brutal ménage à many. Vicious waves of angst filtered up through my innards as I crawled to the kitchen for ice because I’d let the literal tube run dry.

That’s a mistake a ’roid sufferer only makes once. What follows is an early morning jaunt to the nearest drug store, whereby you avail yourself of every tube on the shelf and are only moderately embarrassed as the clerk rings up your seventeen boxes of Prep-H. (generic of course, I’m nobody’s fool.) After you’ve experienced that kind of pain, you could care less who sees you spending $94.76 on off-brand ass cream. You just want to make sure you never run out again.

To this day, even though I’ve got a butt-load (pun intended) of overstock under my bathroom cabinet, I still grab another box every time I’m in the Wal-Mart Supercenter. There can never be too much emergency preparedness in this situation, and I promise you FEMA hasn’t got your back.

I’ve been lucky as of late. I’ve had no flare ups, but it hasn’t been long enough that I’ve forgotten the brutality. I remember praying for death in between suppressing dry heaves and mopping the sweat from my clammy brow. It is a memory that haunts me to this day.

Because he gets a kick out of shit like this, my amazing writer friend Mitch Geller wrote a song about my affliction and I’ll share it with you now. Notice the personal elements he added. A reference to flies (a Jake obsession) and a lighter (Oh, have I not told you that Jaxson recently set fire to his bedroom? I guess a Fire Blog is in order, huh? Stay tuned!)

Jeni is a Gal With Hemorrhoids
(sung to the tune of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds by The Beatles)
*song raped and pillaged by Mitch Geller*

Picture yourself on a smoking hot poker
With cottage-like cheese and watery eyes
Somebody tells you your face is all chalky
To you that’s not quite a surprise
Big hangin’ berries the color of spleen
Flowering like tulip beds
Sat on the one that brought tears to her eyes
And it’s wrong

Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Ow-w-w-w-w.....

As big around as an Austrian mountain
And rocking on bar stools is very unwise
Everyone smirks as she swells by the hour
To grapes in the blink of an eye
Flatulence sounding much more like a snore
Splashing it with her iced tea
Climb in the sack with her butt in a bowl
And it’s wrong

Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Gonna have to get some Venapro
Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Ow-w-w-w-w.....

Tinctures herself in the hopes of salvation
With fermented spirits and big blocks of ice
Suddenly someone is there in the bathroom
A kid with a lighter and flies

Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
One of them looks just like Dan Akroyd
Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Ow-w-w-w-w.....

Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Even took a couple-a Polaroids
Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids
Ow-w-w-w-w.....

Jeni is a gal with hemorrhoids

Pain in my Ass

Three nights ago, I awakened at 3:38 a.m., feeling like something untoward had happened to my lower orifice while I slumbered; possibly a gang rape. Finger-like waves of nausea and sharp pains filtered from my poopie hatch, up through my innards.

Instantly, I knew what I was dealing with. I also knew I was screwed, because I did not have the one and only item that would take care of the situation.

Hemorrhoid cream.

I knew Mom would have some, but the idea of crawling the few hundred yards from my house, up the hill, past the barn, to her back porch, where surely I could scream loud enough to alert someone--let’s just say I knew I’d die of agony first.

I could barely breathe, never mind move.

During the delivery of my firstborn son, I’d acquired a souvenir that would hang about long after Jake was weaned from the bottle. In fact, my little friends--and notice that word is plural--continue to accompany me on my travels and travails in life; a tiny bunch of deflated mini-grapes just inside my anus, like a dormant volcano. Most of the time they rested, and I didn’t even know they were there.

Until they became angry.

I don’t think the human body is meant to withstand a three hour pushing session. I’m not talking about three hours of labor. I’m talking about the part of labor where your knees are up by your ears, and you’ve got a mother and a mother-in-law, each holding back a leg, screaming, “Push! Push! You’re almost there!”

Think of it as taking a three hour shit. You’re bound to come away from the bowl a bit drained, and your lower crevice won’t be feeling, generally speaking, all that delighted to be there.

As I laid on my bed in the wee hours, I wondered if there was anything I could do to take the pain away, because in two hours, I’d have to get up, get two children dressed, and drive twenty minutes to school. That, I thought, might be a tad difficult if I was just having trouble breathing.

I rolled out of the bed and walked, hunched over, to the bathroom, and immediately knew I was going to faint.

I’m a fainter. I guess it’s the body’s way of shutting off when something assaultive happens, but since I was a kid, I’ve been a fainter, so I’m quite familiar with the warning signs. Instant nausea, impaired vision and the feeling of impending death, all prior to lights out. I’ve woken up on the floor of the bathroom twice, one of those times managing to break my glasses in half.

What I did not want to do was faint, hit my head on something, and become unconscious while the rest of the members of my household gently slumbered.

I fell back on the bed, stretched my neck toward the fan, broke out in a flop sweat and thought I might vomit. Thinking positioning might help, I writhed around quietly, trying not to wake anyone, ending up in a position similar to the downward dog yoga position.

By the time the clock showed ten minutes had passed--though it felt like six weeks--the pain abated slightly and my mind cleared enough to embark on a plan of action.

Hemorrhoid cream supposedly shrinks painful swelling, so what did I have at my disposal that might produce a similar effect?

Ice, I thought. Ice, might help with swelling, and didn’t ice also numb things?

I briefly thought of shuffling out to the yard, where a snow storm was in full swing, and dropping my Tweety-Bird flannel pajama pants, spreading my butt cheeks and falling ass-first onto a pile of snow. It sounded like bliss, but I was certain I wouldn’t make it that far.

Getting to the refrigerator seemed like trekking through the Outback, and when I opened the freezer, I realized I had no ice. What I did have, were the freezer blocks, shaped like a soccer ball and a football, that I used for my children’s lunchboxes. For a brief moment, the idea of shoving a frozen soccer ball up my butt, then rinsing it and putting it in Jake’s lunchbox seemed slightly appealing in an ironically, sadistic way. And, believe you me, if it had been my only option, Jake would unknowingly be taking a frozen soccer ball formerly shoved into my ass to lunch that day.

After I’d washed it, of course. What he didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him.

My eyes passed over the vegetables, and I knew my next choice was a bag of frozen peas--but, what would I cook for dinner with the ham and potatoes? I didn’t think I could straddle my dinner, then rinse and eat it, as if nothing untoward had happened in the process.

Then I saw it. The long object seemed just right for the job--a lime green lid to a sports cup attached to a protruding six inch dowel-like rod extending from the screw-on lid, meant to keep the drink cup cool for hours.

It looked like a frozen phallus attached to a convenient handle.

Bingo! We have a winner!

As I shuffled back to the safety of my dark bedroom, I noticed it said Cool-Aids on the side.

Brilliant!

So, picture this. I’ve got one knee against my bed for support--oh yeah, my pants are down around my ankles--and the other knee bent and hiked up sideways. Kind of like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. I’m sort of leaning the frozen object into my rectum, but only slightly. There was no insertion.

I want that on record.

Then I pull my undies back up, to keep the frosty item in place, or at least as close to the target area as possible. Actually, I just ended up riding it like a horse, and my entire va-jay-jay and pucker took only a few seconds to become non-existent.

Blissfully numb.

I lowered my body to the bed and rolled on my side, the frozen thing jutting out behind me, straining my p.j. bottoms. I imagined I looked like someone with an erection protruding from their derrière.

The ice worked, and I feel asleep, waking only when the alarm rang. For a minute, I thought it had all been a bad dream, until I stood and the now lukewarm, formerly frozen lid-slash-frozen-phallus fell down my pant leg and ended up on the floor next to the bed.

I got through my morning ritual in only minimal pain, making it to the store after dropping the kids off, and purchased an armload of items that would take care of the situation. All generic, by the way. I don’t buy brand names if there are generics available.

That’s a fool’s game.

***

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR YOUR REMEDIES
jlcallmejeni@aol.com



Since writing this, I’ve received quite a few suggestions with regard to hemorrhoids. I’m happy to entertain any and all ideas, including homeopathic, drug-related, Grannie’s cure-all’s, and folk remedies.

You can also post a comment here on the blog.

*Recently, I was told a clove of garlic works; just insert it up the chute. Supposedly, it will keep the dog’s nose out of my backside, as well.

Good to know.