The Ass Cancer Chronicles

One of the questions I get assed most often is, “What were your symptoms?”

Gather ’round, children, while I tell you a tale of health neglect, business as usual, and “it was fine until it wasn’t”.

About a year ago, in November of 2023, I called the nurse hotline with questions about what I thought may be an internal hemorrhoid. I’d given birth to two children, Cosmo Abbott & Wilder June, in 2023 & 2021 respectively, and felt a literal pain inside of my ass. With all of my infinite wisdom in googling symptoms from time to time when it would “flair up”, I essentially just called them to confirm. With 3 businesses to run and/or support, I really couldn’t be bothered to go in and see someone. Also, like, holidays. You know, all great excuses when you don’t realize there’s a more serious issue a’brewin’.

Sure as shit, with what I had described as symptoms, the nurse agreed, and provided me with some tips to help alleviate the pain, such as sitz baths, suppositories, and other ways to get rid of an internal hemorrhoid.

I followed the recommendations and began feeling better. Then, about a month later, would feel another flair up, and begin performing the recommendations again.

I started discussing it openly with close friends and family, tagging it my “#buttholeproblems”.

Blood started to appear in my stool or after going #2 in the first quarter of 2024. It wasn’t every time, it wasn’t a lot, and I wasn’t really concerned at first. Maybe I needed more fiber because I was scraping my insides? So I dealt with it…and then it would go away. But the suppositories had stopped working.

SIDE NOTE: At this point in time, you may be like, “YOU’RE SUCH A DUMB DUMB. WHY DIDN’T YOU GO IN IMMEDIATELY?” Allow me to explain. Here are my reasons / excuses. I think being transparent about this part is helpful in many ways for others that may be experiencing something similar relating to their health.

Reasons I didn’t go to the Dr immediately

• If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. If I don’t get paid, bills don’t get paid. If bills don’t get paid, we have a whole new set of problems.
• I have a very, very high pain tolerance. So high that on very rare occasions (like this one & when I had an appendectomy), it is to my detriment.
• I’m a business owner who goes to the US HealthCare.gov website to shop insurance every single year. I’m more educated in insurance than I ever wanted to be, but I also don’t know enough to understand how much every single visit, Dr’s appointment, specialist, ER, etc will cost. Every bill that I am sent from a Dr’s office after insurance covers what they are *supposed* to cover is a surprise. It is an added cost. It doesn’t make sense. And calling to understand takes roughly an hour to an hour and a half each time. Trust me – you should see the records of conversations and bills I kept during my two pregnancies, and how many bills I fought tooth and nail because they are incorrect. Also, please remember bullet point #1 – these are not phone calls that I get to take at home while I claim sick pay, or a personal day.
• It was difficult to prioritize my health with everything going on in the businesses, with traveling back & forth to visit family members who needed our support, kids in & out of school,… LIFE. We all have one. We all have our shit going on.
• I am stubborn and still learning to prioritize my health.

Then, it would come back. There was more blood. There started to be mucus and blood. Again, not a whole lot, but more frequently from an area that no one ever wants to see if coming from, right?

I started to wake up at 2am and 3am in pain in my back-pelvic area. The suppositories stopped working. I used through all of my left over ibuprofen 600s and 800s left over from after pregnancy. I had to start taking naps to get through the day.

Around April or May, I finally got a recommendation for a primary care physician that I went and saw. I was there for nearly 5 hours, explaining the symptoms, the cycle of pain, how I felt, what was happening, what I saw, how often, everything. I was advised that I needed to go see a GI Specialist and to get a colonoscopy scheduled as soon as possible. I was also told that if I continued to see an increase in blood from the rectum, which at this point was becoming more and more common, that I needed to go to the ER immediately.

But wait… the plot thickens in the next couple of months. Stay tuned for theories of what it was, tales from the ER, and ultimately, how I ended up finding out that I had the sexiest cancer of them all – Anal Cancer.

Love & asses,

Kirsten.