I walk in to the office to find the nurse practitioner is basically someone my age; she looks like someone I might actually know or see at a party. How humiliating.
She reads my chart and then we both agree to look at my eyes first. Done. Simple. Steroid drops. Next.
Time to discuss the poop problem.
She asks a bunch of questions about my diet, exercise habits, and poop schedule. She listens and sees my furrowed brow when I deliver the news: “It’s been about five days.” I’m a bit surprised to not see any reaction to this, to not immediately get referred to a specialist, or be asked to go in to the next room for an x-ray.
Actually, according to her, my scenario is not immediately dire. She goes on to explain that some people poop every day, two days, three days—it really depends on the body.
This is not what I’m looking to hear.
But we continue. And yes, to my horror, I have to pull down my pants and have this girl who looks like she could be a friend of mine examine my butt hole. There’s nowhere to hide, and I can’t help but think; I’ve never even seen my own butt hole.
At least the exam is quick.
Then the diagnosis: I have hemorrhoids.
She tells me I have three, and if you think of a clock, I have one at three, six, and twelve.
She starts to talk to me about them as I’m blushing. She tells me they’re super common and if I were to take a walk in the Financial District at lunchtime, one in three people I passed would likely have or have had them. She tells me mine are not bad—“bad” means the size of a grape, so large that you can’t use a public bathroom because the pain is too excruciating to hide.
So, I leave with a prescription for eye drops, a printout of high fiber foods, and a list of things to buy at the drugstore:
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