It started as a slight pain, which I easily brushed aside as a result of the hard wooden chairs that all unfortunate students in our country are forced to sit on for endless grueling hours.
It grew a little more, making me a little nervous, as one of my friends was recently diagnosed with a tailbone problem and had to undergo a rather painful recovery process.
After a few months, it really started to hurt. While I enjoyed using it as an excuse to not have to show-off my skills in performing crunches, I was starting to get a little apprehensive. I confided with the only two doctors in the world I felt comfortable talking to about - that place. But for the moment, I was met with blank stares. Cardiology and Oncology didn't exactly cover the nether regions of the body I guess.
My first year in college was almost over when one day they frantically called me with a diagnosis - pldijlfonidsns! Wait, what?! Pilonidal sinus. Again, what?! I thought sinuses happened in the nose…
In any case, they had their suspicions, but they needed confirmation, which apparently could not be received via telephone. And so, for the first time in my life, I was instructed to go to another doctor - a stranger - and pull down my pants. Mortified does not even begin to describe it.
I didn’t know at that time that it would be the first of many. Three years, three surgeries, and countless dressing changes later, the only thing that had changed was that I could now confidently pull down my pants in front of any doctor without a hint of embarrassment.
When people are asked what stood out for them during college, they would say partying or friends etc. I think all my college friends would agree that for me it was just one thing - my ass. And of course, the pain, the daily dressing changes from the now-familiar team of doctors at my university clinic, the penguin waddling, the secrecy, the embarrassment of "others" finding out, the pretence of "back pain", acting like a snob and refusing to sit on the ground, refusing to sit, period, afraid of the slightest tinge of pain, fearing what it might bring, the relief of hearing those two words "it's closed", the dread of hearing those three words "it's open again", the depression, the acceptance, the weak attempts at humour.
Needless to say, it got to me.
I was tired of going back and forth between healed and not healed. And at some point, I started using it as a crutch to not do things: “sorry, I can't go to the gym because my ass won't permit it;” “sorry, I can't do a summer internship because I have to go back home and get a surgery.” Valid or not, I was almost glad to be sick so I had an excuse to not do things - and that thought scared me the most.
Thankfully, TFI was the one thing I did not allow myself to give up - the day I left for India from Canada and Kuwait, I was told by doctors in both countries that I would need a surgery soon (for those who are counting, it was surgery # 4). After three years of this routine, I was prepared – for surgeries, daily dressing changes, spending half my days in the waiting line of clinics – whatever it was, I was determined to face it.
This is the part where I want to stop writing, because a part of me is still afraid – afraid of jinxing the spell, afraid that it will all come back to me again. Because the moment I landed in India, it stopped hurting.
I pulled my pants down for a doctor in India two days later in India, and she said there was nothing wrong with my ass. I spent the next one month sitting for most of the hours on hard floors and rickety buses, yet it never hurt again.
I don’t think there’s any medical reason that could explain this anomaly – or rather, the lack of an anomaly. Was it because of the mantras that I refused to recite that my parents and my friend recited on my behalf? Can a few sanskrit words really heal my ass? The idea sounds completely bizarre to me. But then, so does the idea of my pain disappearing simply because “I came back home to India.”
I spent four years of my life being the butt of jokes, hearing wise cracks about ass holes and bottomless backsides and acting completely anal. Four years is not something you just forget. Even now, I’m scared of sitting on the ground. I prefer standing to sitting at any given point. I’m shit scared of feeling even a twinge of pain, afraid that it might unlock pandora’s box.
But there’s one thing I don’t feel anymore, and that’s embarrassment. Hence the blog. For all the propriety and acceptable topics of conversation, I have learnt from my uncle that the best conversations are the ones that include “gas” or “bum” and other synonyms, because those are the moments when you laugh your ass off – the moments that you truly cherish.
So if anyone wants to call me up and discuss my butt over a cup of coffee, I’m all yours!
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This post is dedicated to my awesome family and friends for enduring my butt and me for four years.
This post is inspired by a fellow writer / friend / cousin who unfortunately broke her butt recently.
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Update:
The ass problem returned. I had another surgery. Since then, thankfully, it's not come back. But I guess only time will tell.
