Get Your Butt Checked

Here is my story on having ulcerous colitis.

Get Your Butt Checked Back in 1965 or 1966 our family packed the 1960 Ford Falcon station wagon with Daddy, Mama and six children and headed for sunny California from a very small town in north Alabama. Daddy was a preacher and in those days it wasn’t uncommon for a preacher to move every one or two years.

The trip took us almost a week as we stopped along the way to rest. Daddy was the only driver in the family then. The station wagon was a standard shift, three on the tree, and didn’t have air condition. Daddy decided to move during the summer so the kids wouldn’t have to change schools in the middle of a school year.

When we got to the real tall mountains out West, sometimes I think we could have walked faster than the car would pull up the slopes. Even the semis seemed to be faster. What mountains! I remember looking out the window of the station wagon and only being able to see thousands of feet down, down the side of the mountain to utter abyss. I would beg Daddy to let me out so I could walk.

We made it to Clovis, California without falling off the mountain. The people there sure talked funny compared to a country boy from Alabama. I remember being corrected in the way I said “mirrow”. It seems the word is really “mirror” and we didn’t even know it!

The first year in Clovis was one of the best years of my life. I really did like the climate, the country, the people in school and church…everything about California was good. The second summer we were there, we celebrated the 4th of July just like always. We had a good picnic lunch with homemade ice cream and watermelon.

My experience in the past was for watermelon to cause my stomach to “act up” some, so I wasn’t really worried when I had a small case of diarrhea. I still got up around 3 or 4 in the morning to ride my bicycle on the paper route. If I needed to stop, the church building was just down the street and it had good bathrooms.

Well, as time kept going on, my watermelon didn’t stop aggravating my insides. Everything seemed to get worse. Usually I could find a restroom when I needed it or I could tighten my stomach muscles until the “urge’ went away. Then I started school at Clovis High School. It was a big school, not like Sierra Vista Elementary, where I went the year before…before getting sick.

My illness finally got so bad I couldn’t hide it any more. I had an “accident” while at school and had to walk all the way home to change clothes and wash clothes. It finally got so I couldn’t even get out of bed and go to school. My 9th grade school year had only begun, but seemed to be over.

My parents took me to a doctor to find out what was going on. Boy, things were bad then! Back in those days, they didn’t use anesthesia. I had to get on the doctor’s examination bench, put my face on it and my behind up in the air, having my knees drawn up as close to my head as possible. Then…again, I say, then, the doctor took a 1inch PVC pipe and shoved it as far up my behind as he could. I think he took a flashlight and used it to look down the pipe to see whatever it was he was looking for. I never looked; the pain was so great, I just closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, waiting for him to remove the pipe.

My parents were told to get me to the hospital right then. If not, I did not have the chance to live for another few days. I spent the next 6 weeks in the hospital. I had to see the head shrinkers because, at that time, it was thought what I had (ulcerous colitis) was caused by worrying too much. At my age, I had nothing to worry about. In the ‘60s we didn’t have cell phones, computers, computer games, not even boom boxes. Shoot, we didn’t even have television dishes or cable TV. What was there to worry about?

My blood count was wacky. For a couple of weeks they said I had leukemia. I was stuck every day with needles for one reason or another. I don’t think I was supposed to leave the hospital alive. One day, though, after being a human pincushion, everything came back from the lab OK and the “leukemia” was gone. I got to go home for Thanksgiving, but had to return the next day.

I finally went home. The next 20 years was spent knowing where every restroom in every store, mall, ball park, church, etc. was. My life was ruled by my illness, meaning if I did not know where the nearest restroom was, I was going to be embarrassed one more time. I had regular check-ups with my doctor. I got married, had two beautiful daughters, became a cop and seemed to be living a normal life.

My normal life was still ruled by the colitis. In 1984, during one of my check-ups (by this time doctors put me under anesthesia), I woke to find I had a growth the size of an egg in my colon. Tests proved it to be cancerous. I underwent surgery to remove the tumor and large intestine. The small intestine was attached to the rectum and I returned to my “normal” life.

Every 6 months I had to the E.R. and have another colonoscopy done to be sure nothing was going on that may be bad. Five years after the tumor was found, I began to have polyps in the small intestine. I had to go to surgery again to have them removed.

The plan was to undergo a surgery for about one hour, wake up with an ostomy pouch and after the polyps healed, go back and have the intestine reattached to the rectum. Well, as my luck would go, the surgeon found another cancerous tumor at the top of the rectum that was not found during the colonoscopy because the scope started beyond that point.

Now my wife (at that time) had a decision to make. I had signed for one procedure and now there was a problem. When she asked the surgeon what would be the chances, she was told I would not be around within the year unless they took the rectum out. She told him to go ahead with the surgery that would keep me alive for a while. The surgery lasted for over 8 hours and I woke up with an ostomy pouch. The only difference was that it was a permanent fixture, not temporary. When you seem to be having trouble, whether it be constant constipation, diarrhea, or maybe gastric reflux, remember to get checked. Know your children, too. It may be that you can prevent years of pain, embarrassment, and tears just by having your regular check-ups. I am one of the lucky ones. I’m still alive with a wonderful wife and family. Colitis is not fun, nor is drinking the barium, taking magnesia afterwards then having to drive to the house, just waiting for all that chalk to come out…everywhere…at any time…even when driving!

Get your butt checked! Philip R. Fudge, M.S. http://www.shopgbg.com/?id=310832 http://tinyurl.com/siy7

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