enemas

there i am reading the latest edition of private eye when one of the stories just jumps up out of the page and grabs me by the short and curlies. so much so i think i have to share it.
it’s one of the stories that appears in the victor lewis smith (who is not as funny as he thinks he is) section of weird stories from around the world. this particular story is of a death in strange circumstances and the question is “is it murder or just an accident?” if this were tv then we would call on the expertise of gill grisham to solve it – but alas it’s real life and while life is messier than tv it still has the ability to through up stories such as this which make you go – nah that can’t be right.

so what is the story pat? i can hear you all screaming (except those of you have read private eye and already know about it… but fear not there is more to this blog that what is in private eye so keep reading.)

the short version is this “investigators say a lake jackson woman caused her husband's death by giving him a sherry enema, leading to alcohol poisoning. the enema caused his blood alcohol level to soar to 0.47 percent — almost six times the legal intoxication limit, a toxicology report showed.”
michael warner was a drunk who wanted to get rat arsed (geddit) as often as possible but because of a medical complaint he couldn’t ingest booze through his mouth without a great deal of pain. the solution? sherry enemas (george best eat your heart out!)
as the investigating detective, robert turner, said “"we're not talking about little bottles here," turner said, "these were at least 1.5 liter bottles."”
he goes on to point out that if you are drinking booze you will generally pass out before you can drink a lethal dose – have it floating around in your bowels you can keep ingesting it while you are passed out. (go here)

his wife tammy jean said “that’s the way he went out and i’m sure that’s the way he wanted to go out because he loved his enemas”. (now i have a certain amount of sympathy with this as when my dad, an alcoholic of many years standing, died in hospital after not coming out of a coma we discovered that all he had in his coat pockets was half a bottle of scotch, which my mum swore was not there when she dressed him for the hospital. knowing my dad the one thing he would have wanted was that last drink or 5).

she continued by saying “he did coffee enemas, he did castile soap, ivory soap,” she said. “he had enema recipes.” (go here)

tammy jean is also accused of burning michael’s will.
so you the court decide was it suicide by enema or murder at the end of a nozzle?

now this story struck a personal nerve with me (not just because of my dad) and here comes the gruesome confession time so i warn those of you of a delicate condition to turn away now.
when i was kid still in short trousers i had a serious bowel problems (yes those people who know me and have worked with me will say i still have…) which culminated in a period where i was just constipated for a very long time, i can’t remember how long it was but it was long enough that i had to go to the hospital for a consultation.
looking back on it now even then i realised it was a serious issue as i stood in the pharmacy with my mum waiting to get the meds that has been prescribed to me by the doctor and the chemist had them over to my mum with the words “if this lot doesn’t work we will use explosives next time…” i am sure that was hospital humour, pretty certain back then it scared me – but not quite shitless, unfortunately.
among the meds that were given to me were several enemas and these were going to be given to me one a day for a week by a visiting district nurse.
for those of you not fully sure what an enema is: it is the injection of liquid into the rectum through the anus for cleansing, for stimulating evacuation of the bowels, or for other therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.
all of which has a nice shiny ring to it…

anyway the moment of truth was fast approaching and i had made some preparations- which mostly amounted to making sure i had loads of comics in the toilet to read (a habit i maintain to this day…) i figured that i would be in there for awhile – if not because of the cure but because that was what was going to be expected of me.

the district nurse arrived and i am instructed to lie on my side trousers down, naked arse facing the nurse. the enema bag is prepared, it has to be body temperature, and the hard plastic nozzle is lubed and then inserted into my anus. once in the full length, a gentle but firm squeezing of the bag sees the emptying of the bag and the filling up of me. now given that i was full of shit (and some would say i still am!) it didn’t take long for this fluid invasion to go from being uncomfortable to painful.
job done and i am full of sloshing laxative filled fluid.
now all i have to do is make my way from the bedroom to the toilet. but i am half naked, having to waddle to keep my bum cheeks tight and i am trying not to spill a drop, it was not as easy as it sounds.
i make it to the sanctuary of the toilet.
i sit on the seat breath a sigh of relief and pick up a comic to read.
one of the first things i do is to relieve the pressure on my bowels and let the water flood out. ah the blessed release of that torrential gush. earth moving pleasure, but as yet not quite bowel moving.
one comic, two comics, 4 comics read. i can feel my legs going numb. nothing has happened. i keep reading.
now dear reader you have probably worked out what is going to happen and know where dear young mr pat went wrong. and i can tell you now that i did make a mistake.
what the nurse had forgotten to tell me was that the enema would work, but what would be a good plan of action would be to keep the fluid in the bowels for as long as possible and not let it flood out like the tears of a bad actor.
why you say – why keep the fluid in?
well i remind you i have not had a shit in a while – there is a lot of it there and it is hard and solid, and thanks to the enema it is going to come out. now if i had kept the water in for a length of time it would have served to soften it up, turn it into a bit of mush. but i hadn’t.
mmm i can feel movement – i can feel stuff wanting to come out. what i can also feel is my arse stretching to let it out.
now many men might pretend they have an idea of what childbirth feels like but i tell you this i have come close to feeling that pain. oh for sure it didn’t go on for as long as child labour does, but i was in the process of stretching muscles that were not designed to work that way.
i can remember the pain – i can remember the red haze that covered my eyes as this titanic turd decided it was time for it to exit my body and set up home in the outside world. nothing was going to stop it, what used to be a conglomeration of daily turds had merged into one large unstoppable cannonball of shit, and all that stood between it and freedom was my woefully small arsehole.
with veins throbbing, and hands scratching at the walls of the toilet i did battle with that turd – it was trying to break free in one almighty shit comet and i was trying to break it into little pebbles of pooh. sweating breathing heavily i fought against this force of nature.
in the end i survived but it was agony.
i was weak with effort, unable to stand but i was light headed.
i had done the largest shit of my life….

needless to say the next enema i was given i made sure i kept the fluid in until there was no choice to expel it and all the mess in my bowels that came with it. over the next few days the ritual became easier.

now i have to say this childhood experience could be described as a tipping point in my life and is more than likely the explanation for much of the things that i like today. the one thing it as left me relishing and that is the feeling of a good satisfying shit – sometimes the simple pleasures are the best ones.