The State of the Union (and My Ass)

I watched the entire State of the Union Address last night, and believe me, I am so proud of myself. I think the President is imminently listenable now that he's made an entire mess of the world and on his way out to leave it for someone else to clean up. It was so entirely awesome to see a woman sitting next to Cheney. (Think they talked about anything before the speech started? Doubt it!) I couldn't help staring at Pelosi during the speech, and in fact, she made it difficult to look away with all her teeth-sucking and tongue-thingy stuff she was doing. It was like she had corn on the cob as her pre-SOTU dinner, and she chose the speech to try to extract said kernels from between her groundbreaking teeth.

But really, I was distracted the whole time, wanting to concentrate on the fluffy words, but not fully able to.

Because yesterday I was bleeding from my ass.

Yep. Sorry if that's gross. But see, I'm preoccupied. When blood comes from an orifice other than the one that's supposed to leak blood, I'm frankly a wee bit concerned. I'm not talking a little smear on the TP. I'm talking blood, in the bowl. 3 times.

If there is a catastrophic illness or chronic disease that pops into your mind, chances are, someone in my family has had it.

Diabetes? Check
Heart disease? Check
High blood pressure? Check
Breast cancer? Check
Mental health...ahem...issues? Check
Colon cancer? Check

It is with my trademark bitter humor that I refer to myself as that girl with the giant bullseye on her chest. Something is gonna happen to me, either in my arteries or my tits or ass. So when I discovered that no, I wasn't crazy, and yes, that was a decent amount of blood coming from my bum, I called the doctor to leave a frantic message. Then I called the gastroenterologist for an appointment.

Secretary: Well, our first opening is April 3rd.

Me: I'm bleeding from my ass. Do you have anything sooner?

Secretary: Let me see....hmmm....(clicking sounds coming from over the phone)

Me: {Fuck fuck fuck, I'm bleeding, I'm dying, my kids will be motherless}

Secretary: Okay, well, we can get you in March 26th.

Me: That's helpful, because right now I'm bleeding from my ass and waiting two months to see a doctor doesn't feel like a viable option!

So anyway, I called a different gastro and got an appointment that didn't require me to wait 60 days, only a week. No doubt based on family history I'll be getting a full probing, and hopefully some damn good narcotics.

And today, so far so good. A few little smears, but that's it. Here's hoping I had some kind of internal hemorrhoid that decided to burst, or something, whatever the hell angry hemorrhoids do. And here's hoping Dikembe Mutombo can build some more hospitals in the Congo, that we can cut gasoline usage by 20%, and that Congress funds anti-malaria bills to save people from dying of diarrhea.

See? I was kind of paying attention. Sort of.