This Post is About Poop

So you may be asking yourself, how is this post going to be about poop? Looks like a boating accident to me. Did she poop in the lake? Did she poop on the boat and that's what caused the accident? No, not even close. This is a trick question because I never poop. *foreshadowing*

Anyway, last summer I was at the lake tubing. Why did I think this was a good idea? Not sure. I am extremely injury prone, I was bound to get hurt. So I'm on the tube and everything's great, and I'm basically just sunbathing on a moving lounge-chair, when all of the sudden BAM, a huge wave comes and I died. Then people had to jump in and save me, and the paramedics came and they had to shock me back to life with the electric paddles and they said if they would have been 30 seconds later, I wouldn't have made it. **NOTE: last part was possibly exaggerated, but I did actually get hit by a huge wave on a tube and it hurt.**

So anyway, for like 3 or 4 days after this tubing incident, I was in a LOT of pain. Every time I breathed, there was this sharp shooting pain in my chest. After laying around whining to my roommate for about 72 hours about how I was probably going to die of a punctured lung or something, she took me to Redfern (campus doctor's office for students.) Needless to say, they are pretty terrible and hate their lives because they deal with a lot of pissy college students on a daily basis coming in there complaining about genital warts or needing a cure for hangovers and whatnot.

BUT, it's free if your parents are awesome like mine and pay for it. So I guess it's not really free. But it was free to me, so I went and asked for an x-ray.

Maybe it's a product of being located in the middle of a college campus, I don't know. All I know is that if you are a female, and you go to Redfern for ANYTHING, they will blame it on a possible pregnancy.

Basically incompetent.

So after fielding approximately 529852384 pregnancy-related questions, I finally convinced the doctor that the pain was coming from my lung and not my uterus. He agreed to do the X-ray. I finally got into the X-ray room after about an hour of pointlessness.

Not an exaggeration, I did actually have to sign paperwork stating I was in no way, shape, or form carrying a baby. It was absurd.

Anyway, I am lying there on the x-ray table, freezing cold and basically dying because of the shooting lung pain I'm experiencing. The x-ray technician lady is like "So what do you think it is?" and I'm like "I think I broke my rib in half and it's puncturing my lung and I'm dying." and she's like "OK, twist your body this way and try not to kill yourself." And then I killed myself.

She had me lay in that position for about 10 minutes while she took what I can only imagine to be 500 x-ray pictures of my ribcage. She got on the little microphone and told me from the x-ray booth that even though she was done, I needed to stay in that position until she saw the x-rays and knew whether we needed a different view. So I just stayed there, dying, for another five minutes until she finally came out of the glass room.

I will seriously NEVER forget the look on this woman's face. It was pure, sheer, unabashed PANIC. She was looking at me like I might spontaneously combust right in front of her eyes. She gave me the once-over, told me I could sit up, and then sat there staring at me like a freak for another 30 seconds before she finally made up her mind to spit out what she wanted to say.

Me: .....you ok?
X-ray Lady: .....I'm really not supposed to discuss your x-ray results with you, but honey, I don't know how you aren't in EXTREME pain right now.
Me: ........................... ummwhat? Why?
X-ray Lady: If you're not in excruciating pain right now, you WILL be in about 20-25 minutes, I'd say.

**I'd like to go on the record and say that along with being an extremely injury-prone person, I am also a pretty chronic exaggerator and a borderline hypochondriac. When I do get hurt, I tend to make it into something a little more severe than it probably is (same with illness.) And if there is ever a time I think I MAY be hurt, my mind always goes to the absolute worst-case scenario. Like right now, I have this lump on my finger, and boyfriend swears it's a bone spur. I know it's a finger tumor. You see the problem. So, as you can imagine, at this point I am totally losing my shit because of this lady's reaction to my X-ray.**

Marlee's Mental Thought Process: omfg, what is going on, this lady is freaking out, i mean, she does x-rays for a living, i'm pretty sure she sees some pretty bad shit, there must be something seriously wrong with me. omg, i probably have a huge lung tumor and it ruptured when i fell off the tube. can tumors rupture? what if it ruptured and it split into like, 400 mini-tumors and then dispersed throughout my lungs? what if there's an alien living in there? i'm going to die.

BUT, I like to keep it cool on the outside, so I don't let on to my panic to x-ray lady.

Me: ...... no, no pain here, is something wrong?
X-ray Lady: Well, I really shouldn't say anything.... but..... **more concerned gestures and terrified stares**
Me: ....................
X-ray Lady: ......it's just that, well......... honey, I don't know how to say this.........
Me: .................................................
X-ray Lady: .........honey, you have tons, and tons, and tons of stool backed up.
Me: **blankly stares**
X-ray Lady: Seriously, I have never seen anything like it. I don't know how you're not doubled over in pain. 

OK so at this point I start hysterically laughing at the poor x-ray technician. I was diagnosed with moderate-severe IBS when I was 13 and I am no stranger to "severe stool backup." This is normal. This is my life. This lady was looking at me like I had snakes growing out of my forehead. Also, I'd like to point out that this is the SECOND time in my life that I've had an embarrassing x-ray. First, there's a tampon in my x-ray. Now, there's poop. And honestly, if there are two things that a girl would like to keep relatively private, it's tampons and poop. Which is why I'm posting it on the internet.

Me: umm, yeah. It's ok. I have IBS. I'm fine.
X-ray Lady: **skeptical look, leaves room hurriedly**

So I hobbled back to the room to wait for the doctor. People were literally STARING at me. Like, nurses and stuff. Like they all knew. It was creepy. Then the doctor came in.

So, anyway, after all that pointless banter about poop, I finally found out I had a broken rib. Well, cracked rib. And guess what they can do for you?

And guess what they can do for "severe stool backup?"

...............well, on second thought, let's not go there.