Not for the Faint of Heart, Read at Your Own Risk

I’ve been silent because, frankly, what I have to say is unpleasant. The disease I’m suffering from is unpleasant. My existence is unpleasant. And despite the unpleasantness that has become my life, I’d like to think I have enough pride not to share it with the world. But I don’t, and I can only stay silent for so long.

I apologize now for the words that I will write, as they too will be unpleasant. I’m not one for bathroom talk. I don’t like to hear about people’s gastrointestinal “issues” and I don’t share my own. But under the unforeseeable circumstance that I’m afflicted with colon cancer, I figure my life is about to change, in more ways than one.

I have blood in my shit. Blood. In. My. Shit. This alone is cause for alarm. I’ve been on this earth for damn near twenty-three years and until a week and a half ago, I have NEVER had blood—not a trace—in my shit.

But that’s not all, I feel like I shit gravel. Fiery. Clumps. Of. Jagged. Gravel. I need not explain the trauma involved in this.

Oh, and depending on the day, I have diarrhea, or constipation, whichever is more inconvenient at the time. Lets just say this morning, as I repeatedly dashed from the shower to the toilet, (soaking wet in thirty degree temperatures), it wasn’t the latter.

All of the above, and the severe upper abdominal pain I’m suffering, are symptoms of colon cancer.

I don’t know what to do. I’m terrified.

I don’t dare go to the doctor. The last thing I want is to be sedated while a perfect stranger shoves a “long, flexible, tubular instrument about ½ inch in diameter” up my ass. Shitting fiery clumps of jagged gravel sounds like a day at the spa compared to that.

My doctor, (read WebMD), said hemorrhoids may also be the culprit. But just reading the four stages, see below, gives me diarrhea:

First degree: The hemorrhoid does not stick out from the anus.

Second degree: The hemorrhoid sticks out from the anus during a bowel movement but returns on its own to the anal canal afterward.

Third degree: The hemorrhoid sticks out from the anus during a bowel movement and does not return to the anal canal on its own. In this case you can push it inside the anus with your finger and then it will stay in.

Fourth degree: The hemorrhoid is always outside the anus and cannot be pushed into the anal canal.

I lost it at “you can push it inside the anus with your finger and then it will stay in.” WHAT THE FUCK!!! I want my innocence back.

But don’t think you’re in the clear, fifty percent of people encounter hemorrhoids in their lifetime.

This is the epitome of a no win situation. Shoot me now. I beg you.