Why'd The Rolling Stones' Doctor Try to Kill Me?

"Rectum?" She asked. "I damn near KILLED him!"

Nothing’s been the same since the appendectomy. Since then, from intestinal adhesions to all manner of gut weirdness, there’s been…weirdness. But the first time the lower digestive tract acted up was after a 14-hour plane ride. I hate those airplane strollers, walking shoeless, hither and yon down the airplane aisle, and so endeavor to not be one. Which means I sat for 14 hours.

Sure, I read all of that stuff about sitting too long being bad for you but so is crossing the street at any place but the crosswalk. And I do that too. To nary an ill effect.

But suddenly my body, in the ways that bodies do, had had enough. Most of us never think of our rectums unless we’re using it to describe other humans. However, standing up from a toilet bowl full of blood, you start doing some long, hard thinking.

“I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying.” Whipping Boy’s co-founder and friend for life Steve Ballinger has been a doctor for almost 40 years now. I have him on speed dial. “Is the blood bright red or dark red?”

“Bright red.”

“Well that means it’s close to the surface. You been lifting heavy weights again?”

The first time I had seen blood was when I use to squat 455 pounds for solid triples.

I knew of a guy who killed himself because he couldn’t deal with the pain from shingles. I didn’t understand this before. I understood it now.

I explained that I had sat for 14 hours and he told me not to do that anymore. But this was different from that. It was searing pain. Which the next day was gone. And so, out of sight, out of mind.

In December though, after almost a year of sitting, something happened. Another toilet bowl full of blood and not a single squat in sight. My primary care physician asked me a few questions and then this all-too-genteel dance around whether the next course of action was that she actually look at my rectum. Note: I haven’t had a male doctor for years. Not because of my being uncomfortable with it, or out of sheer perversion but, with the exception of Steve, male doctors have never listened to me.

“If anyone should look it should be you, yeah?”

So she did the distasteful deed. Sharp intake of breath.

“Does it feel like you’re passing broken glass when you use the toilet?”

“Yes it does.”

She confirmed that, indeed, my rectum was ripped. To shreds. Passing unusually large stools do that. Her recommendation? Drink more fluids. Eat more fiber.

“But the pain?”

She cheerily admitted that they could give me no pain killer for it since that just slowed digestion, but she recommended baths.

“Baths?”

“Baths.”

You haven’t lived though until you’ve bathed in blood flowing from your anus.

I make an appointment to go back in. You either get better in life, or you get worse. I was getting worse. My appointment was for March 16. The evening of the 14th I spent screaming in my bathroom. I hadn’t used the toilet for four, going on five days. I never understood when people complained about this. Seems like a blessing in disguise and LOOK at all the time you save.

But this was…different: you can’t sit, you can’t move, the urge to go is overpowering and the pain is a reminder of why you shouldn’t. And then there is the blood. Bright red. Lots. I break down and call the day before my scheduled appointment. They tell me to come to Urgent Care. NOW. I didn’t want to go though if it’s just going to be more talk. I need help. I knew of a guy who killed himself because he couldn’t deal with the pain from shingles. I didn’t understand this before. I understood it now.

I was assured that they could extract the blockage. I’d been using topical lidocaine to numb the pain away. This would make it so I could drive. I left the house, leaving the front door wide open and unlocked, my wife and infant daughter inside. Any of you who know me , Mr. Security, know how unlike me this was.

I get to urgent care. After some paper work, I get called in. I’m doing Lamaze method breathing because: pain. Burst appendix, ruptured quadricep tendon, the intestinal adhesion? I would take all of these, together, rather than this alone.

…a blinding light and a pain so intense I Oxbow scream into unconsciousness.

Finally in bops Dr. Susan G. Anderson. She asks me to tell her what’s going on. This was the whole talking thing I was hoping to avoid.

I explain and then I say, “well, they told me they could help me. With an extraction.”

“They didn’t tell you that.” There’s not much that makes me murderously angry but being called a liar, like I’m stupid or fear you enough to make that my go-to choice, enrages me.

“They most certainly did. What would be the benefit in me making that up?”

“Well, let’s get your clothes off!”

I strip. The tattoos become a topic of conversation. I explain that I sing for Oxbow.

“Really? I used to be the doctor for The Rolling Stones.” And she warms up into a story that has nothing to do with my rectum. Or searing pain. Or maybe it does and I’m just missing it. “Yes. I took Joan Baez over to meet them once and…”

“That’s great. Are we going upstairs soon…”

“Well let’s examine you first. Get on your side and pull your underwear off.”

I do as I am told but issue a warning. “I’m going to need you to use some lidocaine before you examine me. The pain is intense enough that that’s the only thing that will make an exam possible.”

“Uh hunh,” I hear her say as she snaps on her nitrile gloves and makes her way over to me on the table where I am hoping for the best because I suspected she used no lidocaine. But I want to believe. In literary terms we call this foreshadowing.

Because that’s the last thing I remember me saying. Before a blinding light and a pain so intense I Oxbow scream into unconsciousness. And I fall. All 230 pounds of me. When I come to I am swaddled in blankets in a wheelchair being hustled up to surgery.

I hear her say weakly, “this is outside of my skill area” and then “I’ve never seen a reaction like that before,” and she disappears.

By the time I get upstairs, everyone there has been mustered into action. They x-ray my midsection and find that I am backed up to my ascending colon. By my unofficial tally that’s about 18 inches of shit.

Back to an exam room when the proctologist shows up. “You’ve got blockage, but you’ve also got tenesmus. And you’ve got very bad tearing. It’s a classic vicious cycle….” She goes on to explain that this is what is causing the pain and more: “we can’t extract it because it’ll make the tearing worse.”

I’m thinking I now also have a perforated colon. Which people die from. “And so….”

She shrugs her shoulders. “Go home. Take a bath. And I’ll give you something.”

Nothing will work. I know this. I have tried every laxative, everything. She says, “oh this will work.” It looks like a plastic water bottle full of a clear liquid. She said to drink half. I drank the whole thing but I didn’t do the math and when it did work like she said and four or five days of fecal matter came out it tore what had been torn even more and I imagined I was dying.

“What a drag it is getting old” indeed.

The next day I read Dr. Sarah Anderson’s After-Visit Summary.

“Tried to do recall exam,” italics mine, and she spelled rectal wrong, “Also fell off the table, extremely tender.” She didn’t mention the mystery lump on the back of my head where I imagine I hit the floor when I fell.

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation is supposed to be a top flight place. My ass says, “my ass.” Did this happen because of race, gender, class or just a generalized callousness that’s connected to people hating their jobs and me being just another job for her?

I don’t know but it’s March 21st now. I’ve used the toilet three times since getting back. I screamed each time. But I’m not dead yet. Which, while it’s cold comfort, is some sort of comfort at least.

I mean it all gets better from here, right?