I thought about a lot of mildly-funny ways to coyly warn people about this entry. But instead I opt for bluntness. Mild-mannered bluntness is also a common form of humor, after all.

So, friends and relatives, if you don’t want to read about hemorrhoid-related experiences, don’t read this.

Hi how are you?

Anyway, so digestion has not really been going that well over-all here in Russia. Usually it hasn’t really been bad enough (I thought) to use the pills I brought with me, and like a lot of minor medical inconveniences I’ve experiences, I just elected to wait it out. A good other example of this, for anyone interested, is of course my recent in-grown toenail experience.

And then we had our trip. There were really no good places to go to the bathroom in the way that relates to this story (of course I could find places to pee – and puke while trying to get a fishbone out of my throat one evening) so I did what I spent all of public school doing. I just held it until I got home. Except this time it was like four days. Anyway I didn’t really feel bad. But when I got back and relieved myself, I was saddled with the above-mentioned affliction. Which is terribly difficult to spell.

So I started doing what Dr. Daniels told me to do the other time I had one. Lots of short, warm sitz baths, sitting on hard stuff, and trying not to eat anything particularly troublesome. I did not want to tell my host family about my troubles, both because I don’t like announcing the presence of hemorrhoids (other than writing about them in blogs I make everyone read – errrr) but even more importantly because the oddness and moderately uncomfortable nature of my previous run-in with Russian folk-medicines. I did not want a lot more jam-tea, or to become better aquainted with the heat-lamp. Little did I know I would instead become better aquainted with various Russian medical personnel all too soon.

So I did these things, and stuff seemed to be about even. Occasionally I thought I might be improving, other times I thought the opposite. There was no large change until Saturday when I started bleeding. That was a change! I was displeased.

On a related note, I had had a great victory with Joseph the night before when we actually managed to find, and drink in, a bar. It was a nice bar we found despite the fact that I had forgotten the directions Leonya had given me (he reccomended it). They have horse-sausage there, at least it was on the menu, but the waitress said then they didn’t have any. And in any case Joseph had eaten dinner already and didn’t feel up to it – and it was listed as four people. So we drank beer and vodka and ate those little salty beer-snack things that make you want more beer and I ate some tasty ribs and french fries and possible something else? No I don’t think so.

But then the next day I was bleeding in my boxers, so that took some of the wind out of my sails. The next day, when I woke up I felt very sick to my stomach and couldn’t keep anything I ate in me. Also no great improvements had come in the night, so that afternoon I confessed to my host sister. Keep in mind that some description was required, despite the fact that I had looked up “hemorrhoid” in Katzner’s – she didn’t know exactly what they were, in the same blissful innocence I remember. Also keep in mind that the only word for “butt” in Russian that I know (or knew at the time) is жопа, which is a swear-word. So my sister enjoyed that.

Then a doctor came to examine me, and we become very close friends. I was at least reassured that this doctor's examination was both probitive and hands-on. Also by the fact that this doctor was a woman of approximately eighty years. But she wasn't sure – not being a «specialist» - so we went to the hospital. It seemed to me she already had a pretty good grip of the situation, but what do I know? I rode in an ambulance, feeling moderately silly (I was just sitting on a chair inside), though the ambulance-driver getting fed up with traffic and using his siren not-very-successfully to make better time was enjoyable.

Then a fairly joial middle-aged male doctor got into the whole affair. He told me what I had been doing was exactly wrong, so I have spent the last two days lying in bed. Which is not that bad. Also I recieved a cream. Things already seem to be improving. No one should worry. Mom.

I'm hungry!