This particular medical adventure begins almost two years ago, although we do not know at the time where it is leading.
After David collapses in Dairy Queen in September 2023, the hospital begins asking more questions about his anemia. Somewhere in that process, the subject of bleeding comes up, and that starts us down the path of getting his backside professionally investigated.
At first, I believe the bleeding is occasional. A few drops here and there. Concerning, certainly, but not enough in my mind to explain how anemic he has become. David does not fully explain the extent of it to me, and I remain skeptical that one hemorrhoid could be responsible for everything.
Still, there is undeniably a hemorrhoid, and it is large enough that something needs to be done about it.
David is given the option of banding it or having it surgically removed. We choose the hemorrhoidectomy. Banding may be less invasive, but after all the appointments and uncertainty, neither of us wants to spend more time negotiating with the thing. We want it gone.
Today is the day.
David is nervous before the surgery, although I suspect I am more nervous than he is. Seeing him in a hospital always stirs up emotions in me that are difficult to contain. There is something about the gown, the bed rails, the wristband, and the clinical quiet of it all that makes my brain immediately prepare for catastrophe.
Once they take him back, I walk across the street to Foxtail Coffee. I order a cold brew, take out my Steam Deck, and attempt to distract myself.
“Attempt” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Thankfully, the procedure does not take long. Before I can fully disappear into a game, I am called back to the hospital.
When I return, David is awake, doing well, and apparently running a one-man morale campaign for the nursing staff.
Anesthesia does something peculiar to him. It does not make him flirtatious in any serious sense, but it does turn him into an aggressively complimentary ray of sunshine. He tells the nurses they are beautiful. He praises their hair, their style, and anything else he notices. Everyone around him is smiling and laughing because he is completely unfiltered and deeply sincere.
It is very David.
The surgery goes exactly as expected. There are no surprises. The doctors already know what they are removing, and now the hemorrhoid is finally gone.
I still do not know whether this will solve the anemia. Part of me hopes it will. Another part remains unconvinced that one hemorrhoid could be responsible for so much.
For now, though, the surgery is over, David is safe, and one enormous pain in the ass has been permanently evicted.
