The 50-year-old bed-wetter

Hola peeps. Been a long while, huh?

It’s remarkable that I am sitting to write to y’all ‘cos just a few days ago I was in so much pain from haemorrhoids. Yup, you read that right. I didn’t even know how to spell haemorrhoids properly until I got it. The spelling’s gonna stay with me for life, like the nursery rhyme on learning to spell hippopotamus.

 

I dunno man, it’s like everything’s falling apart now that I am on the brink of turning 50. My iPad’s cracked so much I can see its inner workings, and the battery life lasts all of 39 minutes – yes, I timed it. My phone is freezing, and I can feel I might need to get glasses soon, even though I have been the last holdout amongst my mates, and that weirdly used to be a source of pride to me. I am still fighting against getting glasses, even though I now have to hold menus 3 feet away from my face to read them, and resort to taking a pic of the itsy-bitsy date dial on my wooden watch with my phone before expanding the pic to determine what date to adjust the dial to.

 

So, back to the haemorrhoids. I woke up last Tuesday with a painful lump around my butt, and for most of the day, I assumed it was a boil. That took me back to being a kid and having boils in the weirdest of regions, like the armpit. That thought took me to a scene in boarding school where some dude had a boil on the knee, so a classmate who was our Dr Pimple Popper before that became a thang was summoned. The word spread, and a small crowd formed to see him at work with some bog roll, a bottle of disinfectant, and his agile fingers. As he commenced, another classmate came by and started horsing around by dangling his tongue close to the blast radius of the pimple. I wasn’t present for this exchange, but if my memory serves me correctly, the prankster was a guy nicknamed Solar ‘cos we used to tease him that he would nod off anytime the sun was out.

Anyhoo, so FGC Warri’s answer to Dr Pimple Popper was doing his thang while Solar was messing around, sticking his tongue out close to the patient’s knee.

 

Solar (*with tongue sticking out*): La la la la la….

Dr PP: Solar, commot your tongue from there. This pimple go soon burst o.

Solar: La la la la la….

Dr PP: Solar, I dey warn you o!

Solar: La la la la la

Dr PP: Solar, I say…

Solar: La la….luh urgh urgh

 

Solar rushes out of the room and starts spitting on the floor. Then he rushes to his locker to retrieve his toothbrush in a desperate attempt to scrape a layer off his tongue. Meanwhile, everyone else, even the patient, surrounds Solar and cracks up at him for having someone else’s pimple pus in his mouth. I am not sure he ever lived that down.

 

So, that story was in my head as I struggled to sit at my desk in the office. Good thing I have an adjustable desk, and I am used to standing, 'cos that’s how I survived that day. Eerily, two guys who showed up in my office randomly started a conversation on haemorrhoids and that’s how I deciphered that my issue may not be a boil after all. As soon as the last of them left, I started searching for causes and cures for haemorrhoids. Afterwards, I was still not sure if I had haemorrhoids or not. It was when I woke up the next day that I knew for sure that I had haemorrhoids. The lump was now massive and hurt like crazy. As I was working from home that day, I decided to resume at the hospital first thing the next day.

 

At this point, I gotta talk about how God’s got my back always. If I didn’t have an adjustable desk, how would I work with a hurting butt?
When I was a broke intern at Purdue University, I walked into a Burger King to purchase a meal and cracked a joke with the cashier. Maybe my making her laugh was a welcome relief from her long day, ‘cos until this day I still cannot fathom why she handed me a handful of vouchers for free meals. I feasted like a, ahem, (burger) king for a month.
Something similar happened during the NYSC year in Lagos when I was assigned to an office that offered free lunches. I can only imagine how I coulda survived on NYSC wages and still been able to buy petrol for my jalopy and treat my girlfriend occasionally.

 

On Thursday, March 12^th, I ensured I thoroughly cleaned the backside as much as possible ‘cos I didn’t want the doctor to think I am nasty. Again, if I didn’t have a bidet hose at home, how would I have wiped down with bog roll after a poop while dealing with the pain of the haemorrhoids? Isn’t God good? Dabbed some talcum powder in my undies for freshness, then set outta house. I kept my wallet in the right back pocket to prop up my butt while driving ‘cos the haemorrhoids were on the left side. I whispered to the doctor, “I think I have haemorrhoids”, and he took it in his stride. U what? Man, I was panicking over the previous two days, not knowing who to ask what was wrong with me, ‘cos none of my mates or family had ever talked about haemorrhoids, and this doctor didn’t bat an eyelid. There I was thinking I would be coping with a lifetime infection after one of the guys in the office revealed he had surgery to take out his haemorrhoids, but they returned.

 

I couldn’t ask mates for fear of ridicule ‘cos I remember when in our early 20s my cuz Femi asked the crew while watching footie if any of us had ever had a stench between our inner thighs and the nutsack. He foolishly went on to describe how, while he was trying to get intimate with his girlfriend at the time, she asked him to shower first ‘cos the stench from his nether regions was unusual. In unison, without any prior coordination, the rest of us cracked on him for the inanity of bothering our footie-watching experience with his stinky self. I think we called him Stinky for a few months afterwards.

Then again, I couldn’t ask Chief if he had had any haemorrhoids ‘cos we have never discussed stuff like that in the past. In fact, the only somewhat “intimate conversation” any of my male siblings may have had with Chief was when, as a teenager, my oldest brother, Tayo, said Chief tried to talk to him about the birds and the bees when he was a teenager, and all he ended up with was an awkward exchange.

Chief: So, Tayo, do you, erm, does your thing rise up sometimes when you see a female you like?

Mr T (*praying the conversation was happening in his nightmares*): Erm, yeah.

Chief (*grasping Tayo in a hug*): That’s my boy!
…and scene!

 

So, it was a relief when the doctor said he would prescribe medication that would make the haemorrhoids disappear within 3 days. You mean this excruciating female-birth-pangs-esque pain could be gone in 3 days?! This must surely be some new scientific breakthrough. It wasn’t. He gave me a cocktail of drugs that I took religiously. Y’all know how much I hate swallowing tablets, right? Usually, when I am ill, I stop taking tablets once I feel better. This time, I took every tablet like they were going outta sale.

 

The only weird part was when he asked me to bend over a bed to examine the haemorrhoids. To make matters worse, he called another doctor in for another opinion. As they spread my butt cheeks to get a better look, I had never been so embarrassed. I ended up wearing sunglasses for the rest of the consultation, so I would not make direct eye contact with them.

Oh, did I mention that I was given a rectal suppository as well? For that one, a mate who’s a doctor offered to assist. Since she’s female, I made sure candles were lit and that Brian McKnight was playing when she showed up at my apartment. The suppository was crazy tiny, and even though she lubed up, it still hurt when she applied it. She said it was ‘cos I wasn’t relaxed. How did she expect me to be relaxed when I had so many questions? For instance, how was she sure the suppository wouldn’t fall back out once she put it in, causing me to experience the pain again? Plus, why are you gay?

True to the doctor’s words, by the second night, I woke up to find the back of my pyjama bottoms stained red. Yes, y’all, I got my first period. I staggered to the bathroom, cleaned myself as much as I could, then went back to bed with bog roll between my arse cheeks. I am telling y’all I’ll never be the same again after this experience. I am literally a different man post-haemorrhoids ‘cos I discovered one of the causes of haemorrhoids is sitting on the toilet for longer than necessary. And y’all know sitting on the toilet is was my thang. Sadly, not anymore.

This experience taught me that men should talk about their issues more; they need to, ahem, open up more. I am tempted to lobby for a National Haemorrhoids Day. I mean, if women can have a gazillion Mother’s Days a year, surely, we can have a day when we wear Ask Me About Haemorrhoids tees and…..never mind, I just discovered such a day exists. November 20^th is World Piles Day, apparently. Lemme go get started on those tees.

 

Tot ziens and God bless.