Disclaimer! The following post mentions my bottom and poop a lot. If you don’t want to read about my bottom or poop, you’re missing out.

Two weeks ago
Two days ago I had a haemmorhoidectomy, which is a very simple surgical procedure to remove one’s haemmorhoids. It may be a simple procedure, but it’s brutal: it involves cutting the haemmorhoid out – not banding it, not asking it politely to leave, cutting.

The pain is indescribable. It’s a stinging pain that no matter how many painkillers I take, it never quite goes away. As I remarked to my housemate this morning, it’s like toothache of the arse. Haemmorhoids themselves are bad enough, the pain of a bad outbreak affects all other areas of the body, radiating out from the core. It hurts to cough, to laugh, to sit, to run. This pain is like a bad haemmorhoid outbreak times fifty. I have twice woken up at 3am sobbing from that intense hurt that I can’t get away from. Breaking wind is a mixture of sharp stabby mc ow ow and blessed relief. I am totally terrified to poop. I have even considered not eating because frankly, dying is preferable to pooping right now. I pooped this morning and almost passed out from the agony. It felt like the creature from Alien was trying to escape out my arse. I sobbed very loudly for a good 40 minutes afterward.

The point of this very graphic and personal treatise on the state of my behind is that I will be bed-bound for at least a week, possibly as long as a month, and this will afford me a great deal of time to reflect on things. Let it begin.

Today
I went back to work today after two weeks of the most excrutiating pain I have ever experienced. I fully intended to use those two weeks to do some internal self-improvement, to spring clean the inside of my head. I kinda did, but not through any deliberate thought processes. My head did it all by itself.

That’s the thing about pain. It’s very focusing. I was totally and completely present the entire time because no matter how many Endone I took, the pain was demanding my attention, insisting that I stay in my body, not deviate from experiencing every twinge, stab, and wrench of agony. I wrote this on my Facebook wall just after surgery:

I have never before experienced a pain like this: thick, oozing and faithful, roiling slowly along the cracked floor of my reception chamber, making its insidious presence felt, allowing no respite. It is constant. Steadfast. It has laid its anchors down and it’s here to stay.

Poetic, huh?

I’m rambling a lot, but what I’ve discovered is that I’m capable of withstanding just about anything, be it physical or mental pain, trauma, needles, the indignity of passing out on the toilet, a broken heart, loneliness, rejection, weight gain, getting older, stubbing my toe, not knowing the right thing to say to a friend in need, being wrong, succeeding, failing … you name it. It hurts. It all hurts. But it hasn’t killed me yet, and as Neil Finn says, everything is good for you if it doesn’t kill you.

Pain is one of our greatest fears next to death. And yet pain can teach us so much. It doesn’t mean we have to like it, but it’s not pointless.