...In which I am forced off the wagon.

Before you read today’s superfluous folly, please consider this imperative caveat.  TODAY’S SHIT IS GROSS!  Consider yourself warned.  NOW LET’S GET IT ON!

            I have had a hard time this week getting the workouts in.  It’s not so much due to time constraints as is the fact that I seem to have a cyst…

…In my buttcrack. 

Let me back up. 

Last Thursday I started to notice this pain in my tailbone.  I thought that maybe I had bruised it during the ab-ripper workout.  If you are not familiar, the ab-ripper workout is a fifteen minute series of movements that are designed to forcibly shove all of your inner workings, from your small intestine all the way through to your colon, out through your rectum.  You do the workout three days a week.  The day after an ab-ripper workout it hurts to blink, and that’s assuming you can muster the strength to lift you’re yourself up from the bed in the morning.  It IS totally worth it though, because as you look at yourself in the mirror after the workout, YOU STILL HAVE A HUGE BELLY!

  On the second day, you feel somewhat better, but there remains a lingering reminder of the atrocity that occurred two days earlier.  And then…

YOU DO IT AGAIN!!!  Fuckin’ Horton.

In any case, I started to notice a pain in my tailbone on Thursday last week.  It hurt to sit, it hurt to cough, and it hurt to even speak loudly.  Over the next few days, it started to worsen.  I called the advice nurse at our HMO and she said that with most tailbone injuries it is best to ride it out, as there is usually nothing you can do.  Therefore, I began popping 800mg Ibuprofen like candy, and hoped it would only be a couple of days.  On Tuesday morning, I woke up covered in hives. 

            “Wait, what?  I thought this was about the tailbone?”

So did I.  They were on my pelvic area, (thankfully not on my weener) my legs, arms, and under my man boobs.  So now in addition to my new Brett Favre diet of painkillers, I was taking Benadryl also…lots.  It appeared a visit to the doctor was in order.  I made that visit yesterday morning.  Yesterday morning was particularly awesome, because my face had swelled up as well, and the hives had spread to my belly, my back, and my legs.  I was convinced I was succumbing to some biblical plague.  Especially considering what I thought was a tailbone injury began oozing some sort of clear liquid.  Perhaps, this is the source of my weird hives.

  Our family practitioner is particularly cool; she has a good sense of humor and comes across as really compassionate.  An excerpt from our actual conversation follows:

Her: “You look miserable!”

Me: (see description of my symptoms above)

Her: “Yeah, your face looks terrible.”

Me: “Thanks”

Her: “Bend over, and let’s have a look. (I assume at this point she puts on 4 layers of latex gloves.)  “Eww, its oozing.”

Me: “Yeah, I know.  It hurts.”

Her: “You my friend, have a cyst.  It’s not related to the hives.”

Me: “Let me get this straight, I have a cyst in my butt crack. (At the time I did not know the medical term for buttcrack is Gluteal cleft, otherwise I would have used it.)”

Her: “Yes, that is in fact, the technical term we use….butt crack cyst. (She was lying, IT’S GLUTEAL CLEFT!)”

The conversation would go on to explain what was wrong with me.  It appears this condition is fairly common.  It is called a pilonidal cyst.  Google has some photos if you're into that kind of thing.  If you’re squeamish, don’t look.  It’s kind of like “Red Asphalt,” just with butt cracks.  The most terrifying thing about this is it could reoccur!  The way to keep that from happening is to have it surgically removed.  I have to have a consultation with a surgeon a week from Monday to determine if surgery would be necessary in this case.  I know what you are thinking.  I know, I also was amazed to find out there was such a profession as butt crack surgeon.     

As for the hives, I am awaiting blood test results to determine the cause.  The doctor suggests it could be a food allergy, and the most likely culprit is either the kiwi, mango, or pineapple I ate on Monday night.  So much for incorporating more fruit into the diet….

I’ve actually grown to crave fruit and veggies, so this situation could potentially be REALLY annoying.   

As you can see, working out has proven to be a wee bit difficult this week.  I only got in the Chest and Back workout on Monday.  After that, the swelling at the tip of my butt crack became a bit too much to bear.  At least now, it’s draining which means the pain has started to subside; but NOW IT’S DRAINING WHICH IS REALLY FUCKING GROSS!  I have to dress it with gauze, several times a day.  This is fine, I don’t mind taking time to do that, but removing the gauze from the now open wound is pure fucking anguish.  The other thing I’m supposed to do is soak in a hot bath to soften the wound and get it to drain more freely.  About that…

The last thing I want to do is sit my fat abscessed butt on the hard porcelain of our bathtub.  Actually, that’s second to last.  The VERY last thing I want to do is sit in a steaming hot bath that is slowly being diluted with the weird slime draining from that very same abscessed gluteal cleft.  I imagine if I sit there long enough I would eventually be sitting in a clear goo somewhat resembling the primordial ooze from the Ninja Turtles.  Yuck.  My solution to this conundrum?  Use the detachable showerhead and give that sucker a proper spray-down.  The normal “rain setting” wasn’t precise enough to create the proper amount of soakage.  I switched to the more precise “massage” setting.  For those of you still using hand cranked water wells like Little House on the Prairie, this is a higher-pressure setting that comes out of the center of the showerhead.  How was I supposed to know that a high pressure blast of water designed to massage muscles hitting an OPEN OOZING WOUND would be so painful?  The first blast of water hit the little bastard straight on and I dropped the showerhead and fell to my knees like General Zod at the end of Superman II.  It was like being sodomized by a million cross-eyed killer Mexican bees! 

I am an idiot.     

You’ll be happy to know the pain is getting better, so I will be back on the workout wagon next week!  On to the 5 things!

5 THINGS I LEARNED THIS WEEK

1)     I have a hairy ass.  Actually, I didn’t just learn this.  I’ve always known.  However, I DID learn that a pilodinal cyst could be caused by ingrown butt hairs.  Awesome.  Over the past few days, the wife and I have been struggling with the crucial life decision of whether or not I should become a butt-shaver. 

2)     A proper outbreak of hives don’t just itch, they sting for a good long while after you scratch them, the stinging makes them itch, but then scratching makes them sting, but then stinging makes them itch but then scratching makes them sting….

3)    There is no greater litmus test for true love in your marriage than the question, “Hey, babe come here and take a look at my butt crack.  Is there something oozing out of there?”

4)    Your dog does not care if you are having any kind of pain.  Especially, as she comes back in from leaving a midnight treat in the backyard.  You can bet the ranch that as she hunkers back down into the bed she is going to shove a paw right in the middle of whatever pain you are having that night.  I almost kicked that dog of off a bridge in San Diego…. 

5)     Speaking of litmus tests (see #3), I suppose there is no greater litmus test for the hardiness of one’s readership than going completely off track from your normal subject matter and writing about something that is likely to induce vomiting. 

Hope you guys, enjoyed.  Have a great weekend!