When I was seven months pregnant with my first child, I had a hemorrhoid the size of one of those foamy candy circus peanuts. It was the most painful experience of my life (until that point). Even the ob/gyn couldn’t bear to look at it. I clearly remember him taking a look at it, covering me back up, and turning around to look out the window while he told me the plan. That same day he sent me to a surgeon who promptly took me to the operating room. Unknown to me until now, he didn’t remove the @#$ thing, he just opened it up, removed the clot stitched it back together and set me up for future misery and future surgery.So, when I was four months pregnant with my second child, it happened again. Only this time the same surgeon took care of it in his office. This now became the most painful experience of my life to date. He literally poked a needle the size the CN tower right into my bright shining hemorrhoid. I was not prepared for that kind of pain. I remember using several words unbecoming of a lady and wishing I were dead. Looking back I can’t believe he did that to me. He could have used topical anesthetic to lessen the pain but he didn’t. He’s a barbarian. I hate to think that I could be the kind of person to hold a grudge, but I definitely do not have positive feelings toward that man.

So now, I’m not even pregnant so I’m not quite sure how this current hemorrhoidal episode began, but here I am again. It began sometime in October. I remember that it happened at work. I used the bathroom and after that the pain and swelling was there and worsened all day long. The next day the circus peanut was back. Not only was I miserable, I was pissed. I spent the next few days in bed wondering what I was going to do. I called my primary doctor, who set me up with a surgical consult the following week. I knew the surgeon from work and I was absolutely NOT going to let him touch my bottom with so much as a cotton ball. Then I remembered that I had a consultation with a surgeon several years earlier with the go-to-gal for anorectal disorders.

Eventually, a couple of weeks later I was able to see the surgeon of my choice. We set up the surgery for the Wednesday following Thanksgiving. She assured me that I would be recovered in two weeks.

The day of surgery everything went well. I was relatively pain free for about five days. DH managed the kids and the home life the best he could. The milkman brought the milk and juice. Peapod brought the groceries. But then, of course, my South end went further South.

The pain started worsening. The surgical site began swelling. I couldn’t have a BM without howling (no lie). I knew it wasn’t normal. My new friend Percocet was gone. I called the surgeon but my calls were intercepted by the Medical Assistant, Barbara. She seemed to read to me from a script about how everyone has a different recovery and for some people it takes longer. Blah Blah Blah. She did report my concerns to the surgeon who called in a script for Vicodin. I took those to take the edge off the pain, but I still wasn’t recovering to the extent that I should have been.

A day or so later as I continued to cry each time I used the toilet, I called the surgeon back. I wanted to speak with HER and again my calls were intercepted by Barbara who again read to me from the recovery process script. She reported to me that the doctor already told her that I would not be receiving any more pain medication. She suggested I take Tylenol. By this time I was angry, belligerent, and becoming a nightmare patient. I read her the riot act about how I was having pain and that it was unethical and unreasonable for anyone to expect me to live the next several days without pain relief. I was informed by her that the doctor was not working that day but if I wanted to I could see the on call doctor in the emergency room. No, thank you. I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll forever be very careful about who I let even look at my bottom.My follow up appointment was probably about five days away. Because Barbara was the gatekeeper and did not feel that my situation was as bad as I was telling her, I was out of luck. I had to wait until my appointment with the surgeon to get help for my pain.

Several hours later….lightbulb moment. I called the doctors office again. I spoke with Barbara again. At this point I could tell that she was done with this conversation but I suggested to her that maybe I could use something topical until my follow up appointment. She said she would check and call me back, which she did. She called in a prescription for topical lidocaine, thank goodness. It was definitely helpful.

So, two weeks after the surgery, my husband chauffeured me to the surgeon’s office for a most interesting follow up visit. I finally got to meet Barbara face-to-face. All I have to say is two words: Old Hag. I did as I was told and undressed from the waist down. The doctor took one look and I don’t remember her exact words, but it was something like “Oh Gosh! This is impressive!” Whenever a surgeon calls something impressive you can be assured its really bad.

As DH sat at the front of me and held my hands, doctor bootie fixer took her tools and looked around. While she was oohing and aahing about my “impressive” butthole she said that I was having a reaction to the sutures and as I panted, and moaned she removed them. OUCH!!

Now, as a RN I know that part of the admission process is to ask about allergies. I did tell the nurse that in addition to aspirin I had allergies to “lots of things”, however it didn’t even occur to me, nurse expert that I am, that environmental allergies would be of significance. I’m not sure exactly what type of sutures she used but there are sutures made of gut, most commonly cat gut. Yes, sutures are made of the intestine of the cat. I am dangerously allergic to cats. Like when they did the scratch tests, the hive that developed from the cat protein was the size of a salad plate.

This is a lesson to all of us. If you have allergies and you are going to surgery, please make sure you report each allergy very specifically.

Now, here is another interesting feature of my follow up appointment. Believe me when I tell you that by the time we were leaving the office, the surgeon changed her demeanor to a more nonchalant attitude toward my butt and my allergic reaction. My guess is that she is covering her butt. Primarily that she was quite unresponsive to my repeated phone calls, but also that she most likely used a suturing material which I was allergic to and did not do the appropriate assessment prior to using it. I cannot be the first person to be allergic to cats who had an allergy to suturing material.

As I was leaving the office, doctor butt fixer not only gave me a prescription for 40 percocet (I only got 30 on the day of surgery) she also gave me a prescription for 30 Valium and another tube of lidocaine. This is reassurance to me that I was not being a big baby or a hypochondriac. I had real pain and real misery.

Of course there is more to the story. As of last week, I have been up and performing activities of daily living. Each successive BM is less and less painful. I have now been trying for the past week to get off the narcotics. Yes, I have actually been having withdrawal symptoms.

I have had several surgeries including two c-sections. I have never in my life needed this much pain medication. I needed it plain and simple. Now that I don’t I feel like shit. Last weekend I spend all of Saturday and Sunday on the couch feeling pain in every muscle of my body, fever and chills. The surgeon says that it might take a month to completely withdraw from the pain meds. The past two days I have had migraines. I have never had migraines. When will this nightmare end?

When all is said and done, I am going to write a polite letter to the surgeon explaining my dissatisfaction with this episode of care. If she is only going to be in the office one day per week, she has a responsibility to have an RN taking her calls, not an MA. This is not to say that MAs do not have a purpose in our health care system. They certainly can take vital signs and assist with procedures, but they have not been thoroughly trained and are not qualified to perform telephone triage, assessment and make recommendations to patients who are having symptoms which are out of the norm. I understand. An MA probably earns $10 an hour compared with an RN who might make $30 an hour. I am confident that if I had spoken to an RN I would have gotten much better care.

So now I’ve been disabled and unable to work for two months. All I’ve really been able to do is lie on the couch and buy things online. Shop! Shop! Shop! Amazon Prime kicks @#$%.

I had to take an incomplete in my Nursing Theory course because I couldn’t sit up long enough to finish my paper. We have no money because as a pool employee I don’t get paid time off. I used to have short term disability insurance, but after my youngest child was born DH decided we wouldn’t need it anymore. The credit card bills should be arriving shortly and I’m not sure how I’m going to pay for them. Unfortunately, as much as I loved school last semester, I think we can only afford for me to take one class this spring.