When I first wrote this, it was June 2nd. Happy Pride Month, happy June 2nd, or if you’re in Australia,“check your poo” on June 2! Whereas March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness month in the USA, June is Bowel Cancer Awareness month in Australia. So now you know. I’m sitting in the airport right now, and my feet and knees are screaming from walking over 13,000 steps through the conference center today for the annual scientific meeting of our primary organization, the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Thinking back, I’ve been to the meeting every year for the past 6 or 7 years, always presenting, only missing the meeting once, last year, when I had a new five-month-old at home. The primary goal for these meetings is to learn things and keep up to date with best practices but the secondary goal is to see old friends and colleagues, find out who’s doing what, and gossip (I mean, network). I don’t do much gossiping, honestly, ain’t nobody got time for that! But, aside from my committee responsibilities (examiner for mock orals, attending a networking reception, organizing a fun walk, then moderating a poster session that felt surprisingly like Shark Tank, because it was called ‘Miscellaneous’ but ended up being mostly new technologies, which I love)...anyway, aside from all that, there were a few lectures I wanted to take in, but I ended up wandering the exhibits and standing in the halls for almost FOUR HOURS because every time I started walking away, someone would go, “Carmen!” And end up giving me a hug and shooting the shit (pun intended, since we are a bunch of colorectal surgeons) for fifteen or twenty minutes, multiply that by fifteen, and, well. I was standing there for four hours. Talking about all kinds of things. How we take care of difficult fistulas (with marshmallows?), cancer pain (not opioids), hemorrhoids (LAYY-SER?) and pelvic floor dysfunction (with immense sympathy and DATA). Did I know I would spend my life talking about poo? Can’t say I did. But now that I’m here, I can’t imagine doing anything else.
So, this afternoon, I was supposed to be working on the final revisions for Constipation Nation, which has an official pub date of November 1st (yay!). I was supposed to be adding references to my Doximity article. I could’ve been writing this. But instead, I was talking to people. Whenever anyone asked what was new in my life, I had to tell them about Constipation Nation, obviously. I may have landed a podcast spot and a consulting role just by…talking to people. Did I know I would spend so much time talking to people? Can’t say I did. I hate talking and yet, I have to do it so much that, it feels like practice makes it easier. Whenever I get asked by pre-health college students what the most surprising thing is about being a doctor, I don’t say, ‘The amount of information I have to hold in my head’ or ‘The number of times a day I’d look at a butthole’. I say, ‘How much talking I have to do’. Because that’s all it is, being a doctor, is about educating yourself, educating your patients, educating your staff, educating your trainees, educating your family (about the difference between internship, residency, and fellowship), and this education includes, in a large part, talking.
But recently, I find that I can’t stop. I talk to my kid non-stop, narrating her day, and as a result, at 18 months, she has a huge toddler-babble vocabulary, not the least of which includes ‘There you go’ (thee-go'), ‘Thank you’ (dee-doo), ‘butterfly’ (biya), and (nee-no) which no one can currently decipher. She also understands ‘bacito’ (kiss) in Spanish and says ‘Po-po’ (Grandma) and ‘geuk’ (foot) in Cantonese. Recently I had a patient ask me if I dreamt in Chinese or English (which, honestly, was a weirdly personal question) but the answer is… both. Depends on whom I’m speaking to, and in the dream world, all communication gets through.
Not so in real life. Just re-watch our Presidential debate.
In any case. Below are all of the PRIDE month things I’m PROUD of.
I helped co-author an LGBT Guide to Gastrointestinal Health for Fight CRC, which you can download here.
I helped make a few videos about anorectal health for Polari, which you can check out here.
Here is my friend and colleague Dr. Henry Blest’s Coming Out Story, which inspired me to write my own.
Here’s my True Poo Colors Instagram post.
Read In My Medical Opinion, where I reposted an old Doximity article I wrote about LGBT health care.
Subscribe to get Constipation Nation updates.
If you’d like a free subscription to my friend Karyn’s Substack, please message me. I have three to give away.
Until next time!
Always go black tie.