A couple of weeks ago, at an old-school Italian restaurant in northern New Jersey, my friend and I convinced my sister to sing. Because nothing goes better with pasta fagioli (pronounced fah-ZOOL) than nightly karaoke.
It was the kind of place that makes it impossible for us native Jerseyians to say, “Oh, no, The Sopranos was a gross exaggeration.” After a few glasses of questionable Sangria, my sister relented. Her pick? Baby Got Back.
A small fan club formed and we all had a good laugh. We could never have predicted just how ominous her song of choice would turn out to be.
One week later, during our usual exercise/excuse-to-gab routine, my sister lowered her voice and said, “There’s something on my butt.”
I looked behind her. “I don’t see anything.”
“No,” she muttered. “Like, in my butt.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Go on.”
“I don’t know what it is, but it hurts like hell.”
“Is it from cycling?” I asked. She and I are avid road cyclists, and that past week she had put in well over 100 miles on her bike.
“I don’t know, but I think I’m going to have to,” she paused dramatically, “Call the doctor.”
Two days later, she was already on her second visit to the OB-GYN.
“I’m going to have to perform a rectal exam,” the doctor said, snapping on a latex glove.
“Can you use a lot of gel?” my sister wept, legs splayed and pride long gone.
In just two days, what turned out to be an abscess had grown larger than the size of an avocado pit, and was located just outside of her… ah, backdoor.
“I need you to get rid of it,” my sister pleaded, voice nearing hysteria. “I can’t even sleep!”
“Oh yes, we will,” a second doctor said.
“Can you do it here?”
“We need to go to the hospital.”
My sister looked at me, torn between the relief that this might be over, and the sheer terror one must feel in realizing a scalpel would soon graze their most sensitive of bits.
Yes, I was in the room the whole time.
When asked how this happened, or what to do to prevent it, the doctor merely offered, “This is a total fluke. You don’t have to worry about this happening again.”
Many hours later, when all was said and done drained and doped up, the doctor left my sister with a stern warning:
“I don’t want you exercising for 30 days. Don’t even sweat.”
Any other fun medical oddities happening out there? Don’t be shy. We have extra gel.
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Go Jules Go 