Tuesday was a crazy day. I answered the 100 questions on my Real Estate Valuation and Appraisal mid-term in 35 minutes. I got a 94%! My brain does apparently work! Thankfully, since I finished the exam quickly, I didn't have to rush my enemas. So, I was able to enjoy them, right? NO!!! Have you ever tried to give a swollen-ish asshole an enema? It's not easy, nor was it pleasant.
After that was over with I had some time to relax before heading to the colorectal specialist with my mom. While I relaxed I learned I got an 82% on the portfolio analysis exam I took last week when this all started going down. I was disappointed, but when I learned I got to add a 4 point curve to bring it up to an 86% it was a bit easier to swallow.
I arrived to the colon & rectal clinic early, but still ended up waiting an hour after my appointment time before being called back. As usual I was the youngest person there. The waiting room was filled with mostly old men. In order to pass time, I pondered why everyone was there. I concluded old men just have bad butts. I was surprised I weighed in at 151lbs! That's fantastic considering on Friday I was down to 146lbs. I told the nurse what Mike Jolly said on Friday and she wrote down notes for Dr. Renee Mueller, my colorectal specialist. Mueller came in and asked some questions before the nurse came back in to prepare me for yet another rectal exam. Two rectal exams in less than a week. This has to be some kind of hell, right?
I dropped my underwear and pants to my ankles, knelt on the lower part of the table for my knees (while sitting on the table this is where my feet rest), and then I leaned forward to lay my stomach on the regular part of the table where a healthy person would sit their butt. Once I was in position, the nurse flipped the switch to move the table so that my butt was higher in the air and my head was lower to the ground. It's quite an experience, but I understand why it's not a ride at Disney. Mueller didn't insert the scope, she just probed around with her gloved finger. So happy her fingers are thinner than Jolly's. The probing still hurt like crazy though. Probably because there's still inflammation down there. To my surprise she didn't find any sign of a fistula. She found the abscess, which she had trouble examining because it begins in my labial majora and tracks to the anus.
After I got dressed, Mueller came back in to discuss what she found during the exam. The good news is there isn't a fistula. The bad news is that even though the abscess is in part of a vaginal area (labial majora), it's most definitely related to Crohn's disease. Mueller said that if I would have seen her on Friday that she would have sent me directly to the operating room to have the abscess drained. However, since it seems to be improving with the antibiotics she's going to see me in two weeks once I'm off the antibiotics to see how it's doing. If it gets worse or stops improving before it's completely healed, I'm supposed to call her and she'll take me to the operating room. The recovery time would be two to three weeks. That would devastate me right in the middle of this semester. I don't want to have to explain that "surgery" to three different professors.
I feel like I dodged a huge bullet and it's looking promising that I'll make it out without having to go under the knife.
