It's not good when your toilet bowl looks like a crime scene.
I imagine that after he retired as a commercial spokesperson, the Ty-D-Bol Man became a crime scene investigator who specialized in blood splatters. He would have had a field day with my toilet - every time I went to the bathroom, there was a new pattern for him to consider!
I had been having some trouble pooping, so the day before, I had had a colonoscopy. As I understand it, this is an operation where a tube is stuck up your butt (the doctor did it, Gamora); a camera at the end of the tube gives the doctor a little look see if there is anything untoward. Up your butt. (I can say that because it's a medical term.) If the doctor finds a polyp that looks potentially cancerous, they can snip it out before it gets too serious.
So. I had an appointment for a colonoscopy. Half an hour later, I was still waiting for the procedure. At that point, I heard one of the secretaries in the office tell another patient that the doctor was in the middle of a "difficult procedure," and all of his appointments had been pushed back at least 45 minutes. Over an hour after my procedure was supposed to start, a patient was wheeled out of the clinic on a stretcher.
Needless to say, I remained completely confident in the doctor's skills.
As I was being prepped for the procedure, one of the medical professionals told me that sometimes during a colonoscopy a blood vessel is nicked or there is some tearing, but that is really rare, so I didn't have anything to worry about. And I wondered, Is this a talk he gives to all of his patients, or only those who come after somebody has been led out of the facility on a stretcher?
I gritted my teeth, determined to remain completely confident in the doctor's skills.
The procedure seemed to be a success (although I was unconscious throughout it, so what the hell did I know?); I mean, I walked out of the clinic on my own feet, so that was a win, right?
A day later, the bleeding started. Around the fifth time in three hours, I began to worry that I might be bleeding out. Okay, if I was bleeding out, it was in slow motion. Very slow motion. Still, if we have learned nothing from Reservoir Dogs, it's that a slow motion bleed out can be just as fatal as one happening at full speed. So, I took myself to the emergency room of a local hospital.
And waited. And waited. And waited. It was the middle of the night, so it wasn't that busy, but my ass problems (not a medical term, but close enough that I feel no shame in using it in this context) were clearly not a priority. As I waited in the Yellow Zone, I don't know which was worse: the infant howling or the stray voice that said, "At least he's not violent."
Eventually, things became quiet, and I could hear a rhythmic whirring sound. It could have been a wind mill, although the province has been slow to adopt clean energy technologies. It could have been hamsters turning a wheel (intubation machines don't power themselves!), but ditto.
So, to make a long story 700 words: sometimes, when polyps are removed from somebody's digestive tract, if the patient is on blood thinners their blood may not clot properly, causing the need to call in the CSI: TB. (Do I have t - if you've been paying attention, you should be able to figure it out on your o - h, fine! Crime Scene Investigations: Toilet Bowl. Really, was that so hard?)
Guess who was lucky enough to have two polyps removed during his colonoscopy? This guy! And who was lucky enough to be on low-dose aspirin, which is a blood thinner, at the time? You got it - this guy! And who was lucky enough to discover his blood wanting to make like a right wing wack job and be free? Umm...at that point, lucky might not be the best way to describe the guy, but, yes, it was me.
In the end, I was given a pill to help my blood clot and told to temporarily stop taking the aspirin. What lucky guy stopped bleeding from his ass a couple of days later?
Come on - it really isn't that hard to figure out!