There Are No Innocent Farts

The first eight weeks of my 20 weeks of chemo treatment, I was given two drugs accompanied by mega doses of steroids, both via infusion and orally. I was told that the drugs would cause constipation but unfortunately, I geared up for this too late and ended up with quite massive hemorrhoids.

The first ones I had ever had in my 50 years of life.

I attacked the problem voraciously. Sitz baths with epsom salts, Nupercainal to numb my sphincter, Preparation H to soothe and shrink the roids, and witch hazel wipes placed gently between my buttcheeks for 10 minutes intervals. But what really works the best to heal them is time. Time and a few good laxatives and stool softeners.

I started taking Senokot (senna), a mild laxative pill, but even with the added Colace, a stool softener, I was still having an issue producing regular, soft bms. And every time I went to take a dump and the too hard stool pressed against my hemis and burned like a mother fucker, my family could hear me moan in pain. And I had the bathroom door shut.

So you can understand why I switched to the slightly stronger laxative Miralax. I had some good results for a few days but then went in for my every other week chemo and large doses of steroids and I wanted to be proactive. The roids were healing and I wanted to keep them that way.

So one night, I upped my Miralax dose. Not by a third or even a half. No, I doubled my dosage. And I felt like I was finally taking charge of my digestive system and my poor painful butt.

As usual, I took my Ativan before I went to bed that night and dozed off into a deep sleep.

I woke up a few hours later to the smell of shit. Usually, I would think that it was just my husband farting in his sleep but I realized that it was coming from me. And I was horrified.

I reached down between my butt cheeks, because that’s what you do when you think that you have shit the bed, and felt that it was a little damp. Then in my drugged state, with that same hand, I reached up to my nose and sniffed. Yep, shit. Between my butt cheeks and now on my hand. I gingerly rolled out of bed hoping not to make things worse and went to the bathroom to clean myself up.

When I was done I went back out to the bedroom and turned on my iPhone flashlight to check the condition of the sheets. Only a teensy weensy bit of shit had gotten onto my new West Elm sheets. I was relieved and figured I could lay a towel down over the spot and deal with it in the morning.

But I kept smelling shit. My husband didn’t seem to mind but I couldn’t fall back asleep. So I went downstairs and tried to get comfortable on the couch. But I could still smell shit.

What the fuck?

Remember when I smelled my fingers? After dipping them into my butt cheeks? Yea, guess I didn’t know how long my nose was because I ended up rubbing feces on the end of my nose. The smell finally went away after I scrubbed my face with antibacterial soap and paid special attention to my nostrils.

After about an hour of this shitastrophy, I was finally able to go to sleep but I couldn’t get over the fact that my every other week cleaning people had just been to my house and my sheets were lovingly washed and put back on my bed for me. And now I was going to have to do it all myself in a chemo induced nauseous haze the next morning.

Chemo is not for the dainty. It causes weird shit to happen to your body. But it also is killing this fucking cancer and allowing me to live. Humor is the best antidote for me. Humor and keeping it real.

So in that vein, I’ll tell you that my three new drugs, Taxol, Herceptin and Perjeta, are ganging up on me to give me diarrhea. And because of that, I have learned that there are no innocent farts. But that’s a shitty story for another time.