Haemorrhoidectomy (the musical?) Review: 0 stars

#46. A guide for anyone facing a haemorrhoidectomy. "You don't fit a Mars bar through a garden hose." And a playlist.

Before we get to this week’s story #46, I’d like to follow-up something from last week #45. Last week I responded to Nick Cave’s question “where or how do you find joy?”. Well, during the week, he posted his 300th Red Hand File. Rather than publish one reader’s answer to the question, he decided to post them all. Mine does not appear at the time of writing, but presumably it will in the future. A (growing) page of responses re: how or where people find their joy is here (the joy files). Worth a look.

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OK, today’s story is published on Day 9 post- my surgery for haemorrhoids.

I publish this with the aim of helping any other poor sap lucky soul who undergoes the same procedure. To boost our collective knowledge. Share insight. In that spirit, I review the experience.

Short version

1. For at least 9 days afterwards, it will feel like you need to poo ALL THE TIME

2. Organise to take leave from your daytime AND NIGHTTIME life for 2 weeks.

3. Get more pain relief than you think you will need.

4. Get even more than that.

5. It might seem counter-intuitive, but take heaps of laxatives.

6. Drink, eat & be merry.

What is it?

haemorrhoidecotomy n., pl. -mies. Surgical removal of haemorrhoids. Usually a day procedure carried out under general anaesthetic. Recovery can take a few weeks and can be painful.
haemorrhoids pl. n. Pathol. Swollen and twisted veins in the region of the anus and lower rectum, often painful and bleeding. Nontechnical name: piles.
— COLLINS DICTIONARY

Prelude

I’d like to state here that I reckon surgery should be a last resort – in life generally – and in this case particularly.

Also, that every human body is different.

And that anyone can reduce the chance of these buggers occurring by eating a lot of fruit and vegetables and exercising. I certainly do not each much fruit and never have. Big opportunity for growth here.

Decision point

The decision to have surgery comes down to personal tolerance. Can I make improvements to this unfortunate aspect of life? What are the costs? What are the benefits? How much is enough?

For me, I did not enjoy discomfort and/ or blood around the place. With my GP we tried some non-surgical ideas. But my tolerance for those ended.

Day (–2)

Saturday. I have preparation steps to follow. The aim of the game is to arrive on the operating table on Monday afternoon with empty bowels. Thanks to a pharmacy on Sydney Road I carry with me a wondrous combination of laxatives.
SONG VIBE: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Elton John

Day (–1)

Sunday. I’m dosed reasonably well with laxatives. Perhaps not quite as well-dosed as I could be, but well enough for a man facing a 3-hour trip in the car on regional highways. Ahead of the drive, at age 49, I voluntarily make the choice to wear an adult nappy under my jeans. Goodbye dignity (2024 edition).
SONG VIBE: Strange Currencies – R.E.M.

Day 0

Monday. I have instructions. I’m not to eat after Sunday evening. Not to drink after 7:00 am Monday. A laxative cocktail stirs up a small amount of trouble.

Monday is an emotional day of uncertainty and apprehension. And surgery. Great friend B takes me to hospital. Late in the day, Dad collects me from hospital and drives me home. I feel woozy. When we enter the apartment, S is already inside. She has come after work to look after me. She has brought with her a cauldron of home-made lentil dhal and another of home-made chicken soup. How lucky am I?

Bizarrely, we stay up quite late, watching TV and chatting. Looking back, I must have been as high as a kite.

Overnight, I am woken by pain from my bum. Unpredictable, involuntary clenches send arrows of pain right through me. It is 3:00 am. I get up and hunt around in the medicine cupboard for the strongest pain killer I have. It’s a left-over tablet of endone from a previous adventure. After taking the pill I lie down and have the very real sense that my left arm lifts right off my body and floats up next to the ceiling. Sleep washes over me.
SONG VIBE: Good luck, babe! – Chappell Roan

Day 1

Tuesday. S is with me and takes the day off work to attend to my every need. I feel blessed. I’d been told to expect enormous pain, but so far, the pain seems alright. We take a small walk to the pharmacy for a catalogue of drugs, to the shops. S cooks a Shepherd’s Pie that will feed us both tonight and me for the rest of the week.

The Nurse in the Home service calls on me. I am apparently meeting their key performance criteria. Everyone smiles, though some instructions are necessarily vague and will later come to haunt me. I ask about a laxative called “Movicol.” Written instructions suggest I take 1 to 4 sachets per day. I ask about that.

“So, 1 to 4 sachets per day. That’s a big range. How do I know how much to take?”

“Oh, you’ll get a feel for it.”

“How will I get a feel for it?”

“Oh, based on the consistency of your stools. The texture.”

“So, is it 1 or 2? Or 3 or 4?”

“Well, start with 3 and see how you go.”

Overnight, I enter a world of hurt. I wake around 3:00 am with an urge to use my bowels. I’ve been told with great emphasis NOT TO STRAIN – rather to let whatever is there fall free. Apprehensively, I sit on the toilet. My bum is a burning ring of fire. Only the most feeble of little turds falls free, amidst a watery, bloody mess. With great care, I clean up, stand up and wash. Before I make it back to bed, though, the gurgling urge to again use my bowels engulfs me. So, I’m back to the toilet. And it is a repeat performance. This is how I spend the hour from 3:00 am til 4:00 am. This painful, torturous haemorrhoidectomy stage show will in fact run unbroken for several days and nights.
SONG VIBE: Handle with care – The Traveling Wilburys

Day 2

Wednesday. S heads off to work and I feel ready for recovery to not only begin, but to flourish. Gurgling bowels and watery bloody messes share top-billing for the day. Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical.

When the Nurse In The Home service checks on me, both nurses are overjoyed to learn that I have “successfully opened my bowels.” This seems to be the Most Important Step To Take after haemorrhoidectomy. It seems to be a moment to celebrate. I briefly imagine the room full of A-listers posing for photos and flexing their arses for the camera. I wonder whether any of them wear adult nappies day and night like I do.

The overnight Wednesday/ Thursday performance of Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical earns multiple painful standing ovations between 12:00 am and 1:00 am and again between 4:00 am and 5:00 am.
SONG VIBE: The Tide is High – Blondie

Day 3

Thursday. My personal tolerance threshold is exceeded which leads me to make a decision. After another day of Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical, I am deflated, tired and in pain. I feel like I need to use my bowels CONSTANTLY. At all times I need to be within 60 seconds’ range of a toilet bowl. That makes general life quite challenging, but I figure I just need to hang in there for a few more days. The Nurse in the Home service visits for the final time – I ask for and receive another script of the most potent pain relief.

I also decide to back off on the Movicol laxative doses. There seems no benefit to me setting my bum on fire for little result for an hour at a time.

My throat has begun to hurt quite badly. Swallowing is painful. This is not ideal as I have been encouraged to drink A LOT. Each swallow brings a tear to my eye.

Two more overnight shows of Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical, are rapturously received.
SONG VIBE: Faith – George Michael

Day 4, 5, 6

Friday, Saturday, Sunday. OK I am well over this now. The nurse in the home program has discharged me. By their reckoning I am now presumably on the path to recovery.

Which does make me pine for the days when I did NOT think about using my bowels. Was there ever such a time? It is the first, second and third thought at every moment of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Except for the moments when I cry with the pain of swallowing. Both my throat and my bum are burning.

Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical plays to multiple standing ovations throughout Friday, Friday night into Saturday, Saturday, Saturday night into Sunday, and Sunday.

Sunday marks one week of adult-man-wears-a-nappy-instead-of-underwear.

Cast and crew of Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical, exhausted.
SONG VIBES:
Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash
Way down in the hole – Tom Waits
Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Basket Case – Green Day
Start Me Up – The Rolling Stones
Bullet With Butterfly Wings – The Smashing Pumpkins
Clark Griswold – Hilltop Hoods
Learn to Fly – Foo Fighters
Paranoid Android – Radiohead
Thunder Road – Bruce Springsteen
Perfect Day – Lou Reed
Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd
Don’t Fight It – The Panics
Low – Chet Faker
Burning – Cory Wong
When the Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin
Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
Another Day – Paul McCartney
People Help the People – Birdy
Teardrop – Massive Attack
You Can’t Always Get What You Want – The Rolling Stones
Never Ending Story – Limahl
Running with the Hurricane – Camp Cope
It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over – Lenny Kravitz
Every Day and Every Night – WILSN
Under Pressure – Queen and David Bowie
Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty
Lookin’ Out My Back Door – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Day 7

Monday. Pain and discomfort are off the charts after yet more overwhelming night performances of Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical.

I’m up early for an espresso and the tram to the emergency department.

This is no way to live.

The tram trip is a butt-clenching high-wire act. Again I wear a nappy.

At the hospital, I kneel at the triage desk. The nurse takes my details and shines a light into my throat for a look.

“Oh boy. Yep you have ulcers back there. Yikes. Blisters. That’s consistent with trauma from an anaesthetic tube. Go to that other window and check in. I’ll be with you in a sec.”

I move slowly around to the other window. Both ends are on fire.

Before long, the triage nurse brings me a heavy painkiller and ~15 ml of a disgusting red jelly-like liquid to swizzle around in my mouth and slowly swallow. This is a type of anaesthetic. Almost immediately I cannot feel the insides of my cheeks, my tongue, my throat. It’s crazy. I’m not sure that I will be able to breathe.

“You will be able to breathe just fine,” she says. “Come through here. A doctor will be with you soon.”

I lie on a hospital bed one week on from surgery.

The drugs work.

A magnificent emergency doctor who, judging by her accent, may be a refugee from Britain’s National Health Service, takes observations and hears my story.

The upshot is: I get a script of supercharged pain relief and a lesson in laxatives.

“Yeah, I think we never really got on top of your pain relief.”

“Your back passage is healing. Make life easy for it. You don’t fit a Mars bar through a garden hose. It’s easier if you can break down the lump.”

“So, I get it. When going to the toilet is painful, I understand the last thing you would want to do it take more laxatives. It’s counter-intuitive. But it’s exactly what you need to do for a few more days.”

She suggests I take a few more days off work and concentrate on recovery.

“Take your time. Your body has been through a lot. It’s all swollen down there from the surgery – which will make it feel like you need to poop, as well. Get some rest, take some pain relief. Come back if you need us.”

I leave hospital and waddle slowly to the pharmacy on the brink of ecstasy.

Pain relief.

Understanding.

A way forward.

I shout myself a ham and cheese croissant, a coffee and an apple on the butt-clenching journey home. And throughout the day, I throw down 5 sachets of movical. Bring it on.

Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical enters a surprise second week.
SONG VIBE: How much is enough, You Am I

Day 8

Tuesday. Cast and crew of Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical wake rested. For the first time since opening night, there were no overnight performances.

By the middle of the day, I feel positively chirpy. Though discomfort soon re-enters Stage Left. Quite the roller-coaster.

The night of Tuesday into Wednesday reaches a new high water mark for discomfort. Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical shows to sold out standing-room-only crowds from 12:00 til 1:00, from 3:30 til 4:30, and again from 6:00 til 7:00 am.

Trench warfare has begun.
SONG VIBE: Midnight Rambler – The Rolling Stones

Day 9

Wednesday. Today. I have had to knock back plans for Friday, for Friday night, and cancelled the idea of working this week. As I type, the urge to use my bowels is upon me - as it has been constantly for 9 days. I wear an adult nappy - as I have done for 10 days. My throat seems to be healing. Pain from my back door remains. Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical - what a show. There is nothing like it. REVIEW: 0 stars.
SONG VIBE: New Sensation – INXS

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Support for Haemorrhoidectomy: the musical and indeed everything here at Sproutings comes from you, the readers. Subscribe. Join in. Support has also flowed through headphones from the following albums:

The rise and fall of a Midwest Princess – Chappell Roan
Cowboy Carter – Beyoncé
Kick – INXS
Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
Radical optimism – Dua Lipa
10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 – Midnight Oil
Wild God – Nick Cave
The Tortured Poets Department – Taylor Swift
Blood on the Tracks – Bob Dylan
From Natchez to New York – Olu Dara
The Best of Blondie – Blondie
Mad Bastards – The Pigram Brothers and Alex Lloyd
Demon Flower – Hunters and Collectors

And The Blindboy Podcast.

And Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle.

Stay well, stay crazy.

Spotify playlist here: