Bad move. Very, very bad move. Everything was going fine until I became airborne -- I sailed much higher than the toboggan and landed ass first on the curled front edge. And then my head hit the board. Out like a light.
Next thing I knew, I was waking up in an ambulance racing to the hospital. X-rays revealed that I'd broken my coccyx (my tailbone) and given myself a major concussion. The pain was otherworldly. The doctors seemed more concerned about my head injury, though, telling me, "We'll worry about your back later." So I spent the greater part of two days lying on my side while being wheeled around for tests. Then, on the third day, the doctor asked if I'd had a B.M. I told him no. He said, "We'll fix that."
Oh, no.
This pretty nurse comes in, moves my gown, and says, "This will feel warm and you'll feel pressure -- just try to hold it in." Next thing I know I feel like I've been inflated with the entire contents of the Goodyear Blimp. The pain in my back is so intense I lose control and spew a stewy froth of liquid all over myself and the nurse. It took a long time for them to get me cleaned up and into new sheets.
The doctor came to tell me it's very important that I do a B.M. But the pain is so intense I can't. He said there was blood in my "liquid offering" and if I couldn't evacuate myself they will have to go in. I lay there terrified, like a character from Friday the 13th -- there was no escape. I tried and tried to shit, all to no avail, each time feeling so humiliated that a nurse had to come in to help me crap. Oh, what just God could force such suffering on me? And on the nurse?
Two days passed and it was now time for the necessary extraction to take place. With my father at my bedside I pleaded, through tears of fear, shame, and pain, "Just take me home. Please, just take me home..." But it was not to be.
Now as I said, I was a Shameful Shitter at this age. So guess what fate determined for me: a group of interns would be there to see the miracle of a shit being forcibly delivered by the demon hands of this sinister physician. The process was horrid, the pain absolute, and once the big obstruction was released a flood of brackish venom seeped out of my ass faster than a hurricane through a New Orleans levee. The contents were kept in a stainless steel dish for all to marvel.
After it all, they cleaned me up and sent me back upstairs. The next day I was told they would need to do a digital exam, as there "may have been some tearing." At this point, with Mother and Dad at my side, I snapped. "'May have been some tearing,'" I repeated, tears pouring down my cheeks. "You pulled a bus through the eye of a needle!"
My dad laid a firm hand on my shoulder and consoled me. "You'll be alright."
The next day came and the exam went OK -- no significant damage to my turd trafficway. The doctor said I could finally go home.
The pain of breaking your tailbone is bad, as bad as kidney stones -- but the shame, the absolute shame of having to always sit on the side of your leg like you are letting off a gargantuan fart is worse. This condition lasted for three months. When I got back to school one of my friends said, "After lunch on the day you got hurt, the principal made an announcement about you and said everybody should say a prayer."
I looked him in the eye. "If you'd been through what I went through, you'd realize there is no God."