💌 408. What Had Protruded Widely over the Neck to the Anus and Between the Toes? 

I was someone who could offer up pains quite well but it had become unbearable to the point where I could no longer live with it. Reluctantly, I turned to my busy husband for help, something I had never done before. Supported by my mother and husband, I arrived at Yeongam Daeseong Hospital with difficulty. I was so sorry that I tried my best not to show any sign of my pain to them, practicing Semchigo as if the trip to the hospital had not been arduous.

Before receiving treatment, a nurse measured my blood pressure, and was surprised to see that it was 50/40. Soon, I entered the doctor’s office and the director doctor, who was very familiar with me, greeted me. Though I did not have the strength left to speak, I thought that I had to be cured one way or the other. Thus, I explained my symptoms in as much detail as I could. "Doctor, my whole throat feels completely swollen, as if my tonsils have swelled up, and there's something like millet has sprouted there so densely that it hurts even when I stay still, making it difficult even to swallow water.

I can not eat any food nor have a bowel movement and I do not know why my feet are like this. It looks like athlete’s foot, so I tried medication but it only gets worse." He had me lie down on the examination table and closely examined my feet. Then, he sighed in a low voice. "I am sorry to tell you this but you should go to a larger hospital for a biopsy."

The director doctor and his fellow doctor just looked at me with compassion. I felt so anxious that I explained more of my symptoms. “Doctor, please listen to me more. I can not defecate. Furthermore, my swollen, protruding anus is so painful that enema does not go in at all. That is why I can not do an enema.” The doctor spoke firmly.

"That is why I tell you to go to a larger hospital. I will write a referral letter for you to get a thorough examination at Jeonnam University Hospital in Gwangju." "Sir, I can not go there. The last time I had surgery at that hospital, they left gauze inside my abdomen and it burst out of my abdomen three months later. You know that the wound did not heal and kept oozing pus, so I received treatment here for over two months." 

"That is why you need to go to a larger hospital." As my words were not convincing to him at all, I became even more anxious and pleaded with him. "I am sorry. I have four children. When I had acute appendicitis, you said I needed to have surgery immediately. Do you remember it?" "Yes, I do."

"At that time, because of my four children, I had planned to have the appendectomy in Gwangju where my husband’s family live so that I could get help from them but rather it was very difficult for many reasons. So this time, I am just going to get treatment here. Please treat me, sir." When I earnestly pleaded, he gave a deep sigh and said as if it could not be helped, "Okay, then let us take a look."

He first asked me to open my mouth and shined the penlight to see my throat. He narrowed his eyes to examine my throat, and then exclaimed, "Ah...!" while shaking his head with a serious expression. His fellow doctor was also surprised to take a close look at my throat, and asked the director doctor, "Um, Director, what are those?" 

However, the director doctor did not give any response to his question. Then, the director doctor told me to lie prone on the examination table and tried to open my anus. As expected, my anus did not open, so he administered three injections about which I did not know. He tried two more injections, but still no progress, so he tried two more. Only after a total of seven injections did my anus open very slightly. Then, the doctor hurriedly called in my mother and husband.

The injections were so painful that I thought there would never be other shot in the world as painful as them. From a very young age, I had been very good at receiving any injection but the pain that I felt at that time was so intense that I thought, ‘No matter what surgery I have, or even the pain of burning my flesh in a fire, it would not be as painful as this injection.’

Later on, I found out that the shots might have been administered into the cancerous lump that had protruded out of the anus, making me feel so painful. I got seven injections, and each time I got one, I screamed loudly for the first time in my life! My mother and my husband, who were waiting outside, were startled to hear the sound of my screaming. Later they told me that they felt much anxious and heartbroken as there was nothing they could do for me at that time.

Until then never have I let out a scream even in the midst of my painful brushes with death, not even once. I was also surprised at the loud sound of groaning that came out of my mouth in spite of myself. I thought it was just a severe case of haemorrhoids but how intensely painful this is! What on earth was happening to me?