i have a complicated relationship with the distal portion of my large intestine also known as the colon i started feeling kinda shitty when i turned 23 and then the pain got worse and worse every day and the days turned into weeks i finally went to see the doctor and i pooped into a cup and then a few weeks after that he stuck this camera up my butt the camera was in a tube and the tube pumped out air so that my colon could inflate and they could look around in there when i woke up the doctor was looking at my chart i called his attention to me with a fifteen minute fart he said son i hate to tell you cause i know you re not gonna like this but they got a name for what you have and it s called ulcerative colitis and in those seven syllables there s a mess of shitty news it s likely that you ve had your last healthy feeling poos it s like road rash on your colon you ll bleed and it ll hurt and no one knows what causes it and there is no cure and yeah your chances of cancer have gone up a bit but colon cancer s curable if you keep your eye on it but mostly what will piss you off is how you re gonna pay i know you re not insured and you ll probably stay that way see insurance companies hate to deal with sick folks like you they don t like taking money from folks they might have to give it back to and your pills are gonna cost you both your arms and at least one leg i suggest you go to canada and get on your knees and beg because here the costs are as high as the market can bear and they can bear a lot compared with soiled underwear i laid there on that bed and thought how i used to like to poo i thought maybe there was a mistake how could this be true i asked the doctor pleading begging if he was really sure and if he was how could it be that there really was no cure the only cure we have he said is to take the whole thing out and then to get your movements out we install a little spout i told him that i d rather take a thousand thousand dollar pills he agreed and sent me home with some similar sounding bills now really all i ve learned besides the importance of fiber is the health care system s more screwed up than a fifty year old fred subscriber