Emergency Surgery: The 23rd Birthday Saga

Okay, let me first explain what the surgery is all about. About five months ago I discovered that have pilonidal disease, which essentially means that I was born with cysts under the skin in between my butt cheeks. Not an attractive description, but there is simply no way to sugar-coat that one. Over the years, one of the cysts created a sinus to the surface and when I was 16, that cyst became abscessed. It was extremely painful, but at that point I had no idea what was happening, I only knew that my ass hurt and that it was totally embarrassing. I went to a doctor and he just lanced it and sent me on my way. I was told that if it happened again within six months I'd need surgery to fix it, and if not, well then I'd never hear from it again. Six months transpired without a peep from my ass crack, and I eventually forgot about the situation completely. Fast-forward to last October. I plopped down on the couch one night and to my horror I felt the dull ache between my cheeks that I knew could only be the beginning of another abscess. Within 24 hours the ache turned into moderate-to-severe discomfort and sitting down had become but a wistful memory. I went to the doctor that night and went through the lancing song-and-dance and proceeded to be in immense pain for a few days. It was then that i decided that I would have the surgery as soon as my vacation time kicked in the following April. 

That brings us to this past Monday, my birthday. I was really excited for Monday to come, not because it was my birthday (I turned 23, it stopped being exciting once I became old enough to drink), but because I had an appointment to get my auto loan refinanced, because I'm apparently becoming my mother. I was all revved up to go do the thing when I couldn't find the title for my car. I seriously couldn't believe it and at the same time I was totally not surprised. Something awful always seems to happen exactly at the moment when I almost have my shit together in life.... anyway, needless to say, I would not be getting a better interest rate THAT day. I was totally pissed off at myself, but I decided to just lug my ass to the always-pleasant DMV the next morning to get my new title and get back on track. That night at work I was doing an incoming inspection in the cabin of an airplane and I was checking out the headphone jacks for the entertainment system when I sat down in one of the seats and POW! that lovely stab of pain  reported from my beleaguered butt crevice. Shit. I decided that I'd had it with all this butt-drama and I was going to end it once and for all. Hence, the surgery. 

It went down yesterday morning and I was understandably terrified as I have never had surgery before (wisdom teeth don't count, everyone goes in for that).  I'm happy to report that everything went okay, the nurses were really nice and I got put under for the procedure, so I didn't feel a thing. I remember babbling about airplanes to the surgical nurses and in retrospect I'm pretty embarrassed about it, but I'll never see those people again. So now I'm just siting at home languishing. The weird thing is that it still doesn't hurt much at all and that doesn't seem right. I keep expecting my butt crack to suddenly explode into unbearable pain, and for there to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth..... Let's hope I'm wrong and having three big open incisions in my but just isn't supposed to hurt somehow. 

Also, Alicia got me the coolest gift for my birthday. Its a mounting frame for the wine-cork corkboard that I've been saving corks to make. She also tied balloons to my toolbox and gave me a tiny cake. It was awesome.