I was a few months shy of eighteen when I first refused an enema from my parents.
They had given me frequent, although not regular, enemas since my fifth birthday. Because I found their enemas strangely exciting, I never made more than token protests when told I was about to get one. Whenever they wanted to give me an enema, I willingly cooperated and it never occurred to me to question the reason. After I reached puberty, the frequency of the enemas tapered off and I got the last one at the age of sixteen. When one was proposed two years later, I rebelled.
My rebellion came several weeks after a fall day when Daddy picked me up when school was out and drove me to our long-time family doctor - let's call him 'Dr. Tomas' - for what was supposed to be a simple pre-college physical checkup. I had applied to and been accepted by a number of colleges and had the health forms from my top four choices with me. Although I didn't like having to have the exam, I was prepared for it. I had the envelopes ready to mail the forms back as soon as the physical was finished.
From past experience, I was apprehensive about going to Dr. Tomas' office, but I'd read the forms carefully and they called for nothing more than weight, height, blood pressure, a few check-boxes for childhood illnesses and immunizations, and a simple current fitness report. Routine stuff. I was relieved that no lab tests were called for - there'd be no needles or finger- sticking. I wouldn't even have to pee in a bottle. There was nothing that should take more than a few minutes - but after we got to Dr. Tomas' office and checked in, I realized that I had overlooked the mandatory long, nervous wait in the reception room with all the sick and miserable people waiting to see him.
Daddy and I were finally taken by the crabby nurse to see Dr. Tomas. After stripping to my undershorts, I was weighed, had my blood pressure taken, and got on the examination table to endure Dr. Tomas' cold stethoscope and his rough thumpings, pokings, and proddings of my chest, back, and stomach. After I got off the table and submitted to the 'cough' test while he poked one ball and then the other, Dr. Tomas sat down and began filling out and signing my college health forms.
"That was a breeze," I thought with relief and went over to put on my clothes. But Dr. Tomas looked up and told me not to dress yet. After signing the last form, he gruffly ordered me take off my undershorts and get back onto the table naked. I protested that this wasn't necessary since everything the forms had called for had been done. But Daddy insisted I comply, so I reluctantly did and was subjected to an embarrassing examination of my butt that concluded with Dr. Tomas' suddenly sticking a fat finger up my ass without any warning.
Having Dr. Tomas feeling and looking closely at my butt was humiliating, but that sudden rectal penetration and the prolonged probing that followed was painful. I was outraged but the muffled complaints I managed from my awkward position - face buried in the examining table and naked butt in the air with Dr. Tomas' finger in it - were completely ignored. I couldn't believe what was happening - it was awful! And it hurt! Damn it, why was Dr. Tomas doing this? And why the hell was Daddy allowing him to do it?
When Dr. Tomas finally pulled his finger out of me, I didn't wait for permission but hopped off the table and went for my clothes. Dr. Tomas began telling my father something about a 'pilonidal cyst.' I had no idea what that was but was so mad that I didn't care! All I wanted was to be out of there! I quickly dressed, grabbed my signed college forms, and angrily slammed out, leaving Daddy and Dr. Tomas to discuss whatever the hell they wanted to talk about.
The nurse saw me leave the office and came running out to insist that I come back in and wait in the reception room. I coldly informed her that I would never go into that office ever again and, leaving her stammering in surprise on the front steps, I walked around the building to the parking lot and got into our car.
I sat alone in the car for a long time, trying to calm down. This was unbelievable! There was nothing on the forms about my butt. Much less having a finger stuck up it.
Damn it! Ever since I was a little kid, I'd always left Dr. Tomas' office feeling worse than when I went in. There had always been shots, excruciating blood-drawings with big-needled glass syringes, or painful finger-stickings from the crabby nurse or some sort of yucky-tasting medicine for me to take. I never knew what to expect, but it was always something bad! Once, Dr. Tomas had prescribed big suppositories that I had to endure twice a day. They burned and I had to hold them in forever and I still don't know why I got them. And there were the 'worm pills' he prescribed for me when I was a third-grader that had made me shit in my pants at school since there had been no warning of their effect. When I had complained about any of these things, my parents' response was always "Dr. Tomas' says you have to." No other reason was ever offered. They never questioned his edicts and my visits to his office, or the results from them, had always been dreadful. But this visit was the worst and, I now decided, the last. Damn it, I wasn't a little kid any more! I shouldn't have to submit to this sort of humiliation and Daddy shouldn't have made me do it!
Daddy finally came out and got into the car with me. Instead of starting the car, he began to tell me what 'Dr. Tomas said.' It had been humiliating enough to have Dr. Tomas stick his finger up my ass and I didn't need my father talking more about it, so I angrily shut out his babble about my 'suffering from a pilonidal cyst.' I was shocked when something filtered through about surgery on my butt. I was silent, not believing what I had heard. Surgery? On my butt? No way! I didn't hear that right. But then Daddy began to tell me about the preparations for my surgery. I interrupted him and emphatically said that this was nonsense and he could cancel the preparations. There was nothing wrong with my butt and I wasn't going to have surgery done on it. My butt was fine! It only hurt now because Daddy had let Dr. Tomas stick his finger up it!
There was more blah, blah, that was simply more of the old 'Dr. Tomas says you have to' crap. Finally, I shouted that I didn't care what Daddy or Dr. Tomas said, there would be no surgery on my butt. I was not 'suffering' from anything except humiliation from him and Dr. Tomas. I had my college forms filled out and signed and, not only would Dr. Tomas not cut up my butt, he would never even see it again! I started to open the door to escape, but Daddy cranked the car and we drove home in silence.
I was very upset that what was supposed to be a routine exam had turned into a nightmare. There was nothing wrong with me and I couldn't understand why convincing my father was so hard. Except that my butt still hurt from Dr. Tomas' fat finger, it was fine. Dr. Tomas shouldn't have even looked at my butt much less done what he did. I believed I had made it clear to Daddy that the stupid butt surgery thing just wasn't going to happen.
Daddy let me out in front of our house and drove away again. I assumed he was going back to work and went angrily to my room. I heard the car return about a half-hour later, but gave it no real thought.
I refused Momma's call to come to supper, shouting back that I wasn't hungry. I was still too angry and humiliated to eat anything and I lay on my bed smoldering. Damn Dr. Tomas. And damn Daddy too for allowing him to do that to me. I had my college forms filled out and signed, but it wasn't worth that nightmare experience. However, I wasn't taking any chances, so I got up, carefully sorted the forms, sealed each one in its stamped envelope, and hid the envelopes until I could drop them into the corner mailbox on my way to school the next morning.
That evening, I was doing my homework when Momma came to my room with a tray of delicious-looking sandwiches and a big glass of milk. The sandwiches were for me if I got hungry before bedtime but she wanted me to take two big pink pills for her now. I was still fuming, but I appreciated her thoughtfulness and obediently gulped the things down. "That's my good boy!" she said with a smile. She told me that I'd be taking the pills at breakfast and supper for a while. "They're big pills, but they're no substitute for the food my big boy needs," she gushed as she offered me a sandwich. It made my mouth water and teenage hunger overcame humiliation; I grabbed the sandwich and eagerly bit into it. Momma smiled, kissed me on the forehead, and left.
Over the next few days, I calmed down when there was no reference to my awful experience with Dr. Tomas and no mention of surgery. I had mailed the forms to my colleges and eventually put the matter out of my mind, foolishly believing that I had made my point. About three weeks later, I learned how wrong I was!
The Sunday of my rebellion, I was not awakened to go to church as usual, but was allowed to sleep late. I got up once about midmorning to pee, drowsily wondering what had happened to breakfast, but since my parents had gone to church without me, I gratefully went back to bed and slept soundly. Daddy roused me when he and Momma got home and told me to take 'a good, long shower' before lunch. Having had no breakfast, I was very hungry. I didn't want to delay lunch so, despite Daddy's instructions., I showered as quickly as I thought I could get away with and threw on some clothes.
When I got to the dining room, I found not our usual hearty Sunday midday meal, but only clear chicken soup, saltine crackers, Jell-O, and for me a 'special' lemonade instead of the iced tea Momma and Daddy had. I took only a sip of the lemonade - it tasted awful - but wolfed down several bowls of the soup and ate all the other stuff. When it was gone, I took my empty bowl and still-full glass into the kitchen. I put the bowl in the sink and, while the water was running to rinse it, I poured the lemonade into the sink, holding in the ice cubes in so I could refill the glass with water. I looked around for something else to eat, but there were no cookies, leftovers, or other edibles in sight and I grumbled aloud that I was starving. Momma came in, shooed away my complaints, and told me not to eat anything else, but to keep drinking the lemonade. She led me to believe that there was to be a surprise that I mustn't spoil by eating anything before supper time. Wanting to be her 'good boy' and, not suspecting the real nature of the surprise, I ignored my teenage tummy rumblings and agreed to obey.
She showed me the pitcher of my 'special' lemonade in the refrigerator and told me to drink lots more of it instead of snacking. "It's just for you," she said, refilling my glass so I could take it to my room. "Keep drinking the lemonade and you'll forget about being hungry." She obviously thought I'd drunk the glassful I'd been served with lunch and I didn't tell her otherwise.
As I left the kitchen, I took a mouthful, but the stuff still tasted so awful I spit it back into the glass. When I stopped at the bathroom to pee, I poured the lemonade out into the toilet. I took the empty glass to my room, stripped to my underwear, and fell onto the bed for an afternoon nap. I was still a teenager and, if I couldn't eat, I'd sleep.
When I woke up, there was a fresh glass of 'my' lemonade on my bedside table but I poured it into the toilet again, amused at the loud 'splooshing' sound it made as I raised the glass high. I idly made a game of peeing on the ice cubes. I rinsed the glass several times, splooshing the water into the toilet each time. When I was satisfied that all the yucky lemonade taste was gone, I filled it and drank most of the water.
A few minutes later, Momma brought another glass of lemonade to my room. "I heard you in the bathroom. Doing okay?" she asked. I replied sleepily I was doing fine, but didn't touch the new glass. If she'd heard me pouring the last one into the toilet, she might want to watch me drink this one and I wasn't about to do that. I didn't want to disappoint her, but two tastes of the stuff had been quite enough and I wasn't about to actually drink it. I'd have a big glass of cold milk with supper and we could forget about the awful-tasting lemonade.
I tried for a long time to go back to sleep, but couldn't. I was still thirsty and thought that by now it was safe to pour the lemonade out again. It splooshed into the toilet, but not as loudly since I was trying to keep it quiet. I rinsed the glass and poured several glassfulls of warm water on the ice cubes in the toilet, filled it with cold water, and drank it. I finally flushed the toilet, hoping that I was safe. Maybe if Momma had heard anything, she'd just think I'd been peeing.
I thought I'd gotten away with it, but Momma brought yet another glass of 'lemonade' to my room almost immediately. She told me to drink more of it before I went back to sleep, but left without waiting for me to comply. I was relieved, but was also amused by her 'back to sleep' comment. Even though I enjoyed sleeping as much as any teenager did, I'd already napped enough for one day. I was wide awake now and was so bored I actually started reading the book that been assigned in my English class and that I'd been putting off. I can't pretend that I found the novel really interesting, but it did take my mind off my increasing hunger.
Just as I got to the second chapter, there was a soft tap on my bedroom door and Momma asked if I was okay. Jeeze! The lemonade glass was sitting there untouched. The ice had mostly melted, but it was obvious that I hadn't drunk any of it. I quickly hid the book under the covers and pretended to be asleep. Momma quietly slipped into my room, replaced the warm lemonade with a fresh glass, and slipped back out.
I didn't understand her obsession with the lemonade, but decided to stop playing her game. I 'woke up' and took the glass to the bathroom again. This time, I didn't pour the stuff out quietly but splooshed it good. I wasn't going to drink it and if she brought more and insisted, I'd just tell her I'd had enough. I watched the damned lemonade and ice cubes swirl and flush, washed the glass and had another drink of water before returning to my room.
I started reading again, but this time Momma didn't play the game. The empty glass sat on my bedside table and, after a few minutes, I forgot about it.
Late that afternoon, I was lazily lying on my bed plowing through the novel, when I heard noises from the bathroom. I could hear my parents talking, but couldn't make out what was going on and didn't pay too much attention until I clearly heard Daddy say, "All set? Okay, I'll go wake him up now."
Daddy came into my room without knocking and was obviously surprised to find me awake. After an awkward comment about the book I was reading, Daddy startled me by announcing that I was to accompany him to the bathroom now so that Momma could give me an enema.
Except when I'd been ill, most of my previous enemas were given to me at bedtime and it had been a couple of years since my last one. When I had thought about it since then, I had regretfully assumed that I was too old for them to give me enemas any more (although I'd been secretly doing enemas by myself since I had discovered a new dimension to them when I was twelve). This offer was quite appealing; maybe I wasn't too old to get an enema from my parents after all. I wanted to agree, but hesitated. There was something suspicious about this. Was it an offer or a demand? For the first time, I didn't immediately submit. I asked Daddy why they wanted to give me an enema 'now,' suggesting instead that we wait until that night. Daddy told me we couldn't wait. I was stunned when he said "Dr. Tomas has told us to give you an enema before we take you to the hospital this evening for your surgery tomorrow morning."
I was speechless, but wasn't about to accept this shocking surprise. The enema wasn't the heart of the matter. This was deception! The stupid butt surgery thing had been settled weeks ago! But they'd never actually said so and it began to dawn on me that my parents had conspired all along to keep secret their intention to force me to have the surgery until this last minute when they thought it would be too late for me to object.
I was both shocked and hurt. Did they think I was still five years old like when they had given me an enema and taken me to the hospital to have my tonsils out? Well I wasn't! I was about to go to college! Repressed memories of that awful experience so long ago suddenly flooded back. I wasn't going to go through anything like my tonsillectomy again! Ever! I had been too young then to object, but not now! Butt surgery? This time I was certainly going to object. But I lay on my bed, silent with shock, not believing what was happening.
The next few minutes were confusing, but things began to fit into place. My parents had deceived me from the start. I knew there wasn't anything wrong with my butt, but they were still blindly following whatever Dr. Tomas ordered and were ignoring me. Those damn pink pills! Daddy had driven off to get them after delivering me home and Momma had given me the pink pills that first evening and twice a day since. Dr. Tomas had prescribed the pills but they never told me and I had never suspected anything. Damn it! How stupid could I be? Why hadn't I remembered the 'worm pills'?
And what about no breakfast and, for practical purposes, no lunch either? Why the awful lemonade? The answer was now obvious: secret preparations for butt surgery. Jeeze! Why hadn't I seen it coming? How could I escape?
Daddy, taking my shocked silence as consent, began what he must have thought was a soothing explanation of the enema I was about to get and of my hospital visit and surgery. When I collected my thoughts and I realized what he was saying, anger overcame my shock. I hopped up off my bed and loudly confronted him. It wasn't the enema that I objected to. It was the unfair pairing: get an enema and go to the hospital. There was no way that I was going to go to the hospital for butt surgery. There was nothing wrong with my butt! They weren't taking me to the hospital that evening or any other evening. "Hell No! I won't go!" was my shouted response.
Hearing the row, Momma came from the bathroom to my bedroom. She tried to play on my emotions, cooing to me about how proud she was that I'd always taken my enemas like a 'good boy.' She knew I was drowsy, but wouldn't I take this enema now? Just for her? She'd heard me in the bathroom that afternoon and the enema would make me feel better because "It'll wash the bad stuff out." I told her hotly that my getting an enema now wasn't the problem. I had never minded her giving me an enema. The problem was what she and Daddy intended to do after the enema - the problem was the secret they'd concealed from me until this last minute.
My mind was racing. Lemonade indeed! It must've been spiked with a laxative. That would explain the awful taste. I suddenly realized that Momma thought the splooshes she'd heard coming from the bathroom this afternoon had been the laxative going through me rather than directly into the toilet from the lemonade glass. She thought I'd drunk all that awful stuff and she'd heard it working. Was I "Doing okay" in the bathroom? Sure I was, but no thanks to her! The "bad stuff" the enema would've washed out was the stuff she'd given me to drink. Momma had been part of this damned conspiracy all along. She had known those damn pink pills were to get me ready for this but sneakily concealed it from me. Take an enema 'just for her' now? Hell no! Not now and never again!
My mouth finally caught up with my mind. I stood face to face with both my parents and angrily insisted that I was not going to the hospital, but they both acted as if I was a child who had no choice. Daddy tried to lead me to the bathroom for my enema but I knocked his hand from my arm. An enema was one thing, but going to the hospital was quite another. No way! If my submitting to the enema they proposed to give me was part of it, then they could forget it! Completely!
I was too big for them to use physical force, and despite all their verbal attempts to persuade me to go with them to the bathroom for the enema, I absolutely and vigorously refused to cooperate. I could tell that they were surprised by the vehemence of my protests. It was if they'd expected me to meekly submit again. Why did they think I'd be 'drowsy' after sleeping the whole morning and napping much of the afternoon? What the hell else beside a laxative had been in that lemonade they believed I'd drunk? It must have been some sort of tranquilizer or sedative to make me docile.
I attempted to explain why all this was so stupidly unnecessary and why I felt so betrayed by their deception, but they continued to insist that I comply. Nothing I said made any difference. Everything was arranged and all I could do, as far as they were concerned, was submit to the inevitable.
Finally, I announced that since they wouldn't listen, I would say no more. They should shut up and get out of my bedroom because I wasn't going to have an enema now and I wasn't going to the hospital for butt surgery now or ever. I flopped back down on my bed and picked up my book, pointedly ignoring them.
They left my room, and, for a brief moment, I thought they'd given up. But as Daddy closed the door, I heard him tell Momma, "Never mind. They'll give him the enema at the hospital. We can take him in early if necessary. I'll call them now so they'll be ready."
I thought to myself, "Oh hell no 'they' won't give me an enema! You can call 'them' if you want to, but, ready or not, 'they' will never give me an enema at the hospital.
And 'they' didn't. I gave 'them' no chance.
I didn't know how my parents thought they'd get me to go to the hospital, but I wasn't about to wait to find out. Tossing the book aside, I threw on my clothes, grabbed my wallet, and listened at the bedroom door until I was sure that my parents were in the den at the other end of the house and my escape route was safe. I left my bedroom, softly closed the door behind me, and quietly headed for the back door.
As I passed the bathroom, I saw through the open door how it had been prepared for the enema Dr. Tomas had ordered for me: a thick layer of towels was spread on the floor for me to kneel on, an opened jar of cold cream was on the counter, and the old familiar red enema bag was hanging there ready for action, budging with warm soapsuds and dangling its black nozzle. I didn't slow down but gave the setup a one-finger goodbye salute. That was an enema that would stay in the bag. It was an enema refused.
I could hear Daddy and Momma talking in the den. I couldn't make out most of what they were saying, but understood Momma saying something about my being drowsy after all that lemonade. Then I could hear Daddy dial the telephone and begin talking. I didn't wait to overhear more.
I silently slipped out the back door and went past the car parked in the driveway, pointed towards the street ready for the hospital trip. Carefully keeping out of sight of the den, I walked rapidly downtown. To hell with soup, Jell-O, pink pills, and spiked lemonade. Screw my parents' damned secret surprise. I was starving so I made a stop at the hamburger joint.
After enjoying a big burger with all the trimmings, I went to the nearby movie theater. It would be my hideout. My friends and I had seen the film last Friday night and we'd thought it particularly dumb, but the movie was long and seeing it again was infinitely better than going to the hospital. Besides, the theater's popcorn was excellent and I was still hungry. I was angry but was rather pleased with my rebellion and was very determined to continue it.
I kept wondering what was going on at home. That enema must be as cold as the lemonade by now. What would my parents think when they went back to my room and found I wasn't there? Delicious! It would be my 'surprise' for them. They could go to the hospital if they wanted to, but I wouldn't be with them.
After sitting through two showings of the brain-numbing movie, I left the theater, ate another fully-loaded hamburger and got extra-big bag of fries to go. It occurred to me that, under other circumstances, I would be a candidate for a good enema, stuffed as I was with junk food and popcorn. But not now. No parental enema tonight for this college-bound guy and certainly no hospital! I slowly strolled home, arriving long after my usual curfew.
Ordinarily, I would have been worried about being punished for such defiance. But what could my parents do now that would be worse than what they had planned? Nothing! My ass might be in trouble figuratively, but I had saved it physically. I had deliberately grounded myself from going to the hospital and there wasn't anything they could do about it. No enema - no hospital - and no butt surgery. And no spiked lemonade either, although I was getting thirsty from the salty fries I was still munching.
When I came in the front door Daddy and Momma pounced on me frantically. I had to endure the finest display of parental anger, whining, questioning, and urging ever, but my response was a consistent defiance and a brazenly enjoyed fry (accompanied whenever I could manage it by a loud burp). I was hurt and angered by their deception, and I wasn't about to accept a guilt trip from them. The hospital thing had been settled that afternoon - in fact the butt surgery nonsense had been settled for weeks, although they obviously still didn't realize it.
Their first major line of attack was "We all have to do things we don't want to do." My response was "Not stupid things like unnecessary butt surgery, we don't!" Why was I was the only family member who had to meet this stupid edict? I'd never seen either of my parents do anything they didn't want to do. How many of those damned 'worm pills' had they taken? When had either of them had Dr. Tomas humiliate them as he - and they - had humiliated me? And why had their intention to force me to have the needless butt surgery been kept secret from me? I had made my objections quite clear but Daddy and Momma had ignored them. There was a lot of improvised bullshit but no answers. They were still treating me like a little child who must unquestioningly submit to whatever they intended.
I threw back at them another familiar saying of theirs: "We don't always get what we want." They wanted me to blindly submit to this stupid, unnecessary surgery but they were going to be disappointed. This time, they weren't going to get what they wanted.
I pointed out that I was no longer a kid and that secretly giving me a laxative and sedative and then trying to force me to have an enema before loading me into the car was not exactly the way an adult should be treated. If they'd tried it on someone else, it would've been assault, battery, and kidnaping and they'd be in jail now. For some reason, they didn't appreciate the logic of that. I was still a child in their eyes and they could do anything to me.
Daddy tried the familiar "If I could take your place, I would!" bullshit that had always been a forerunner of something distressing for me - involving needless pain, humiliation, needles, worm pills, painful suppositories, awful tasting medicine, or anything else that we both knew he would never even consider for himself but was determined that I would submit to. This time, his ploy didn't work. I angrily told him that he needed butt surgery just as much as I did. The time had finally come when he 'could take my place' and deal with the hospital and Dr. Tomas' stupid surgery himself. He could have Dr. Tomas stick that fat finger up his ass and then slice his butt open and I certainly wouldn't object. It would give Daddy something to 'suffer from' in my place.
Finally, I was fed up. With a big yawn and a very satisfying burp, I reminded them that it was late and that I had school the next morning. It was long after midnight and obviously too late for my parents to take their rebellious son to the hospital. Besides, it would take much more than an enema to clean me out for butt surgery now.
Leaving them sitting in the living room to figure out what had gone wrong with their secret plans, I went to the kitchen for something to wash down the last of my now-cold fries. I poured a big glass of milk - noting with a wry grin that my 'special' pitcher of lemonade had disappeared from the refrigerator - and headed for my bedroom.
On the way, I stopped in the bathroom and saw no evidence of the setup for my pre-hospital enema - the empty enema bag wasn't even hanging up to dry. I took a good dump, and deliberately didn't flush the toilet, instead dropping in a big french fry to float with the toilet paper and turds. I knew it was a childish gesture, but they'd been treating me like a little kid, and if my words couldn't make my contempt for their actions clear, maybe this would.
As I put on my pajamas a few minutes later, I chuckled to myself when I heard the toilet flush three times. Ha! One of them had gotten my point!
I knew I had won this weird battle. There had been a fundamental change: I was no longer an innocent child who would unquestioningly submit to whatever awful treatment Dr. Tomas ordered. I went to bed contentedly, with a bit of regret that I could no longer accept enemas from them. Their enemas had been excitingly pleasant. But, after this, I could no longer trust my parents and the 'good old' days were over. I fell asleep quickly and slept the sleep of the victorious.
Early the next morning - Monday - I got up cheerily, showered, dressed, and fixed myself a big bowl of cereal. I said nothing to Momma and Daddy, but gave them both a defiant grin as I left the house. I was happy to be walking to school now instead of being wheeled into the hospital operating room as they had intended. I remembered the awful time years ago when that had happened and my tonsils had been scraped out. If they'd had their way, right about now Dr. Tomas would be slicing up my butt. Jeeze! That would've been a real slide down a mile-long razor into a bucket of iodine! However, despite my innocence and stupidity, I'd escaped.
My home room teacher was quite surprised to see me but wouldn't tell me why. She had obviously been let in on the secret but wasn't going to admit it. During the devotional and other home room stuff, I imagined Dr. Tomas standing beside the empty operating table, scratching his bald head, and wondering where his helpless victim was. "Screw him," I gleefully thought. Throughout first period, I fantasized what Daddy and Momma must be saying to Dr. Tomas to explain why I wasn't there for him to cut up. "Screw them too."
My parents did not accept my rebellion gracefully. Things were very, very touchy around the house for a long time - in fact, our relationship was never the same again. Fortunately for me, I was soon an adult who didn't have to submit to their blind compulsions. My eighteenth birthday was celebrated only with my friends. I made sure there'd be no 'birthday surprise' from my parents this time.
Although Momma continued to coax me to submit to the needless surgery, I was no longer her 'good little boy.' No more pink pills and laxative/sedative lemonade for me. Daddy also tried everything he could think of to get me to go back to Dr. Tomas with him but I was adamant.
I stood firm on my announcement that Dr. Tomas would never again see my face, much less my butt. My parents never got me back to him although it was not from a lack of trying, overt and covert. Once, on the pretense of driving me somewhere, Daddy pulled into the parking lot behind Dr. Tomas' office. I didn't say anything but when we got out of the car, I gave him a knowing grin accompanied by a finger wave, hopped over the fence behind the office, and walked away. I wasn't about to fall for any more of Daddy's silent-until-the-last-minute bullshit. After that, the only time I was alone in a car with him was when I was driving.
Whatever a 'pilonidal cyst' was, if I ever 'suffered from' one it didn't bother me then. And it never did. The next year, when I went on my own to a real doctor for a college sports physical, I told him about the experience. He carefully examined my butt - without rectal probing - and said there were no signs of a pilonidal cyst and he couldn't understand why Dr. Tomas thought I had one. He explained that a pilonidal cyst is a sort of hairy pimple near the tailbone. While they were fairly common, particularly in teenage boys, what I might have had was a simple zit. The pink antibiotic pills I'd taken would have cleared it up. "The zit was gone by the time you were to go to the hospital," he told me. "Even if you had a pilonidal cyst, surgery wouldn't have been indicated unless the cyst was very large or it had been badly infected. If you didn't know you had it, you didn't need surgery." He didn't say so explicitly, but I could tell that he thought Dr. Tomas was incompetent.
I have learned that Dr. Tomas fancied himself a surgeon but had no surgical credentials. Our small county hospital - not exactly the Mayo Clinic then or now - only allowed him to do minor surgical procedures. The excision of a pilonidal cyst was one of his biggies and he missed no opportunity to do the operation on unwitting victims. Some time after my final encounter with Dr. Tomas, the hospital completely revoked his surgical privileges although the son-of-a-bitch continued in general practice for years until he finally died - unmourned by me - but without his ever seeing any part of my anatomy again.
Long after these events, I found out what I had so narrowly escaped when, at a professional conference, I ran into a guy - I'll call him Bob - from my hometown who'd been several grades behind me in school. Over dinner and drinks, we talked about 'old times' and I learned that when he was fourteen, he'd had a pilonidal cyst operation from Dr. Tomas and "had been butchered." I described to him my own final encounter - actual and intended - with Dr. Tomas, and over the course of a long evening, Bob gave me the following account.
Bob's experience also started with a humiliating butt exam - including the fat finger up his ass - from Dr. Tomas that revealed a previously unsuspected and non-symptomatic 'pilonidal cyst' that 'had to be operated on.' His parents made no secret of the inevitability of the surgery and, although he was terrified, fourteen-year-old Bob was too young to resist effectively.
Bob didn't remember any big pink pills, but he was constantly reminded about his scheduled surgery and, and as the date approached, his activities were openly restricted. On the day he was to be taken to the hospital, he was allowed only a couple of slices of unbuttered toast for breakfast and then was given nothing but liquids and repeated doses of a strong - and awful tasting - laxative. That afternoon, despite the effects of the laxative, he was forced to submit to two large soapsuds enemas given about an hour apart by his mother. During each enema, his father stood sternly watching the procedure, ready to intervene if Bob offered resistance. (Unlike me, poor Bob had always hated getting enemas and these were particularly traumatic since he knew what was coming.) After the second enema, he had to lie quietly on his bed until it was time to go to the hospital. "I was too exhausted from the laxative and the enemas to have escaped like you did," he told me.
Bob angrily described what happened at the hospital that evening. He was treated like a child - ordered around, his feelings, questions, and protests ignored.
While his parents filled out the admission forms, Bob was taken away by a large and hostile nurse he called 'The Battleaxe.' In his room, she stripped him naked, put a short, backless hospital gown on him, and forced him to get into bed. Ordering him to lie quietly, she left, taking his clothes with her. Bob was lonely, frightened, and miserable.
The Battleaxe barged back in a few minutes later, accompanied by a lab technician who insisted that Bob pee into the bottle she held for him. Then, with the nurse holding his arm down, the technician clumsily drew blood samples. It took three agonizing needle sticks before she found a vein. When this torture was over, but before the technician left the room, the Battleaxe made Bob turn over onto his 'tummy,' stuck a thermometer up his ass, and told him to ‘be still.'
A male orderly came into the room and watched, chatting with the nurse. When the Battleaxe finally pulled the thermometer out, she instructed Bob not to move. The orderly lathered up and roughly shaved Bob's buttocks and his crack with an old-fashioned straight razor. The orderly and the nurse - who held Bob's buttocks apart so the orderly could shave between them - continued to exchange light talk during the shaving, completely ignoring Bob.
After the orderly made a final swipe of the razor at the top of Bob's crack, the Battleaxe released his buttocks and rolled Bob over onto his back. She pulled his legs up and held them apart while the orderly shaved around his anus and balls. They carried on a joking conversation about 'the size of things' and the orderly commented that 'this kid' had 'better hope the razor doesn't slip.' The Battleaxe gleefully replied that it wouldn't matter since Dr. Tomas was going to 'cut him a new asshole anyway.' According to her, Bob was the fifth boy that month that had been there for Dr. Tomas' special treatment. "There must be an epidemic," the orderly said. "More like a gold mine," the Battleaxe commented and they both broke up.
It was extremely humiliating. Bob told me that if he had been younger, he would have cried and if he'd been older, he'd have slugged both of them. If his clothes had not already been taken away, he'd have dressed and escaped from the hospital when the nurse and orderly finally left the room. "God! I still wish I had run away even in that damn gown," he said. "It would've saved me so much pain and misery."
When the nurse - who now 'exuded sweetness and light' - brought his parents to his room, Bob complained to them but got no sympathy. His mother commented that he seemed agitated and the nurse gave him a shot to 'calm him down.' After sweetly escorting his parents out, the Battleaxe came back, angrily scolded Bob for 'making a fuss,' and gave him a large soapsuds enema. "It was really bad," Bob told me. "Mom's enemas were no fun, but the Battleaxe's enema made them seem like Christmas kisses." He achieved a small victory by ignoring the harsh admonition to 'hold the enema in until I tell you.' As the nozzle was removed, he squirted the enema back out before she had the bedpan in place. "The Battleaxe was really pissed off," he said, "but I was too drugged by then to really appreciate it. If I hadn't been so doped up, I'd have been able to aim and would've shit the enema right into the bitch's face."
Bob was kept so sedated that his memories of the surgery and the rest of his six-day stay in the hospital were very hazy. "It's just as well," he said. "I think it was just as bad as that first night and, if I remembered it as clearly, I probably would be serving prison time now."
When he was taken home, Bob had to take sitz baths three times a day and had to submit to an enema every night. (The enemas are the only part of this that might've appealed to me, but to Bob the enemas were part of the poor guy's continuing torture. The enemas certainly wouldn't have made up for horrors I would've had to endure.) The pain from his open surgical wound was bad, particularly when he was forced to get up and sit in a chair. "I don't know what the pain pills were," he said, "but they didn't work."
After a long recuperation at home, Bob was sent back to school with a large bandage (a 'Kotex feminine napkin') tightly taped into his crack. It was painful to walk around and he had to sit on an uncomfortable, donut-like rubber ring about which he was mercilessly teased by the other kids. "They called me 'rubber-butt'," he said.
At lunchtime, his mother took him home for a sitz bath and a redressing of his surgical wound. "Pulling the tape off was agonizing, but I guess I should have been glad she didn't use Tampax," Bob told me wryly. He had to eat lunch while sitting in the sitz bath and then had another Kotex taped into his butt crack before his mother took him back to school. Each evening, he got a soapsuds enema and another half-hour-long sitz bath. Every Wednesday after school, he was taken to Dr. Tomas to have silver nitrate applied to the surgical wound in his butt. "That stuff burned like hell. It was even worse than the enemas," he said bitterly. There were also frequent fat-fingered rectal inspections.
Although the treatment regimen was gradually relaxed as his open wound healed, it went on for almost three years. Bob couldn't participate in sports activities and wasn't allowed to go on class or scouting trips. His peers treated him as something odd and he had few friends. "I always had that damned red donut with me," he told me. "I couldn't go swimming or anywhere else that kept me from having the dressing changed. I couldn't even dance because it hurt too much. And when you're asking a girl for a date, how do you explain to her that you've got to be home by 10:30 so you can have your enema?"
It had been more than twenty years since Bob's surgery but he still suffered physical and emotional effects. He couldn't sit in one position for more than a few minutes without pain from the scars. The constant shifting of posture when walking and sitting caused back problems. As a final irony, the poor guy still had to have frequent enemas because Dr. Tomas's butchery had damaged rectal nerves and muscles. Bob still disliked the enemas, although those his wife gave him were not as bad as those he'd had from his mother and the 'Battleaxe.'
I shudder to think how narrowly I escaped Bob's fate. If on that Sunday afternoon years ago, I had not questioned the enema my parents wanted me to take - if I had meekly submitted to it as I had always done before - I don't believe I would have been strong enough (physically or mentally) to avoid the unnecessary hospital trip they had secretly planned and the awful consequences that would have followed.
My parents' conspiracy and unquestioned acceptance of "Dr. Tomas' orders" ensured that none of my children were ever left unaccompanied with them. My kids got enemas when necessary, but I wasn't going to give their grandparents a chance to secretly do more than give them an enema.
How strange it still is to me that, of all my many 'childhood' enema experiences, the one with the most lasting effect was an enema that I didn't actually get, but was 'an enema refused.'
