Physical Pain an Almost Full Disclosure Part 2

Hi All,

I appreciate all your comments and feedback from my blog last week.  The authorship process is one I want to learn and grow with.  Your feedback is invaluable to me and helps me to better myself as well as produce a better book for the world at large to benefit from.

Before I get to part two, I wanted to pass on a couple of updates:

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Ok: Physical Pain an Almost Full Disclosure Part 2

As I said last week this is a brief excerpt of the book I am working on.  Any/all comments, suggestions, and feedback are welcomed and much appreciated.

In March of 2012, nearly nine months post hernia surgery, the pain downstairs had subsided enough were I was starting to feel more normal in that area.  Normal in the sense that I was no longer getting the constant pain I had been previously, but there were still problems.  My back had gotten so bad that my movements were very limited.  Sitting for more than 20 minutes was a challenge, as was walking, hiking, etc...  (those of you who have been following the 1000 Challenge page since the beginning have noticed the decrease in hiking photos) This again affected the more intimate parts of my life because if I made any sudden movements, I would be greeted with a shooting pain through my body.  Reaching out to open the door hurt, imagine how much other things would hurt.

I was in so much pain, I felt completely emasculated, and was so frustrated with not being able to do some of the physical activities I enjoyed doing.  I began seeing a chiropractor that I was referred to by a friend.  I saw him for several months and my back did not improve, it only got worse.  In late June of 2012 I was referred to a Physical Therapist.  I saw him a couple times and for the first time since April of 2011 I felt a little better.

When I left to live in Europe, July of 2012, I was hopefully and optimistic that I was finally healing.  I had made a promise to myself that I would take a long walk around London every weekend.  The first weekend I was there I took about a seven mile walk.  The second weekend I walked the length of the Thames River up to London Bridge.  It was awesome.  I was doing the exercises religiously that the physical therapist had prescribed.  I was excited to continue to heal and return home in the fall back to my normal self.

Two weeks into my London adventure I went to the bathroom, number two.  It was really painful.  I thought that was weird, but figured it would go away. It didn't go away, it was there the next time I went to the bathroom and the time after that.  Not only was the pain there, but it was getting more intense and leaving me with a bloody mess.  

It only continued to get worse and worse.  After two weeks of this I was terrified to go anywhere or do anything.  If I walked longer than 10 minutes I felt uncomfortable.  I was scared of being away from a bathroom because the whole process of going was now taking me three times longer than normal.  It hurt so bad that I found myself at times biting down on towels to try and keep myself from yelling out in pain.

I was able to fly back to the States in late August to go to the doctor. By this time I had scared myself stupid by reading horror stories on websites about what could possibly be happening.  The first doctor I went to suspected I might have hemorrhoids. I started taking medicine (the kind you have to shove up your ass) as well as spending 30 minutes a day, two times a day, soaking in an epson salt bath trying.  As you might imagine, I was feeling really good about myself, especially since I had just started to feel better about my sexuality a few months earlier.  Now I am back to having pain and problems in areas that are some of our most sensitive.

 I also went to an acupuncturist who prescribed me to drink aloe vera juice (which tastes gross) as well as wheat grass juice, everyday.

I did all of this and it still did not get better.  I flew back to the States again and went to a different doctor.  He told me a I had an anal fissure, which is basically a tear in the tissue of your butt.  He said it was a fifty fifty chance it gets better on its own.  If it didn't the other option was surgery.  I again read the horror stories about how if the surgery did not go right you could lose control of your ability to control those muscles needed to go to the bathroom.

There was no way I was going to roll the dice and do the surgery, especially after I had had such a "positive" experience with the hernia surgery.  I convinced myself that I could heal naturally and I resolved to do anything and everything possible to heal.

I was doing everything I could to be proactive with my new “condition.” I changed my diet around by adding in a ton of extra fiber, stool softeners daily, eliminated alcohol, and eliminated red meat.  I stopped going out to eat because I was so terrified of not having full control over what went into my body.  Naturally this had a pretty shitty (Pun intended) affect on my social life.

I continued to take the Epsom Salt baths twice a day for 30 minutes at a time. The baths were frustrating to me because they took up so much time, but I had committed to follow instructions.  I began using the time in the bathtub to meditate.  I would go through a visualization of healing energy entering inside of me, healing my body.   Along with the Epsom Salt baths, I was applying this cream one to two times daily that if I put to much of it on it made me light headed, dizzy, and gave me an instant headache.  There was more than one time I almost passed out using this stuff.  The cream of course has to be applied to the injured area, so needless to say the rubber gloves that you see at doctor’s offices became staples in my day-to-day life.  I got very familiar with a part of the human body that most of us never have to acknowledge save  for disposing of our  “wastes” and that is it.  This was definitely some of the more humbling times of my life.

I was miserable.  I had finally started to feel better and now here I was with another problem below the waist.  I felt emasculated even more so and horribly inadequate as a man.  All those feelings I had of not being good enough, of hating myself, of being unattractive that I had fought my entire life were beginning to come rushing back to me.  

A large part of my adult identity had been built around the physical aspects of who I was: being able to be fit, active, and desirable by the fairer sex.  Now my ability to move was again limited; my back was only getting worse and now I was having new problems downstairs. More significantly for me was the emasculating feeling.  I was in so much pain I could barely think about sex let alone be sexual.  It was challenging, in my mind I did not feel attractive, in my mind I felt broken and focused on pain.

I can go a couple ways with next weeks blog... I can share with you part 3 or I can switch it up, save part 3 for later, and go with a different topic.

It is up to you.

Thanks for reading and your feedback. :)

Carpe Diem,

Jesse