Many moons ago, the phrase “No guts, no glory” was what motivated me to get myself out there and do the things that terrified me. It was the kind of thing I found on tumblr, printed and pasted at my work desk.
I was just trying to put myself out there and be something.
Today, I’m sitting in the waiting room at SGH Centre for Digestive and Liver Diseases, thinking about my literal guts. And there is zero glory to be found.
I’ve never been very regular. It’s just such a chore to have to stop whatever I’m doing to visit the toilet. Even worse when it’s out in public.
So it was a huge change when I had really painful constipation early this year and every successful poop became a cause for celebration and a mark in my poop tracker on my calendar.
Papaya worked like magic. So, we began buying papaya like some people buy Hermes bags.
One for today, tomorrow, the day after..
C and I have created sign language in relation to this beautiful orange fruit. We even have a papaya song. He is now also an expert at cutting papaya beautifully.
But after meeting the doctor, if glory was something younger me thought the guts were in control of..
There’s no glory with showing a stranger your most intimate parts. Getting my anus probed by two doctors has also decidedly not been glorious.
Welcome to the first of potentially many more hospital visits as I get older.
Very human, mildly humiliating, and ultimately helpless but grateful for the strangers doing this work.
I’ve scheduled my colonoscopy for June, and as I walked past a very handsome man in scrubs, I texted C.
No (properly functioning) guts, no glory..?