Colon as Metaphor

Dispatches from convalescence

I had my toe amputated last week.

Which, frankly, felt like the main event.

There was surgery. There was anesthesia. There was a boot. There was a whole dramatic arc involving waterproofing my foot like I was preparing it for a NASA mission just to take a shower.

And then… there was the walnut.

If you’ve never been on opioids after surgery, here’s what happens: your colon politely clocks out. It takes a vacation. It ignores emails. It stops forwarding internal memos. Everything slows down. Time becomes theoretical.

I pooped the night of my surgery because I had the audacity to eat a kale salad from Chick-fil-A, and kale fears no narcotic. Then… nothing. Days passed. I was busy managing medication schedules like a suburban pharmacist and Googling whether ibuprofen has feelings about my liver. Meanwhile, my colon was stockpiling.

And then today.

Today I became aware of my own internal infrastructure in a way that felt biblical.

There I was: one week post-toe amputation, in a surgical boot, sitting on the toilet, trying to negotiate with something that felt like it had been kiln-dried inside me.

The cramps came in waves. Actual waves. I briefly considered whether I should start timing them like contractions. I leaned forward. I breathed. I reflected on an episode of a medical drama I had watched the night before where an elderly woman arrived impacted and left victorious but projectile.

This is what happens when you watch true crime instead of editing your novel.

You assume you are now That Woman.

Spoiler: I was not That Woman. I was just a person with hard stool and a flair for catastrophizing.

Eventually—after small negotiations, strategic retreats, and what I can only describe as Booted Labor & Delivery—progress was made. Not glamorous progress. Not cinematic. Just human progress.

And as I sat there, I realized something deeply irritating:

This is exactly what writing (and editing) a novel feels like.

You build something slowly. You let it sit. You ignore it while you watch true crime. Pressure accumulates. The longer you avoid it, the harder it becomes. Then one day you decide it’s time. And it hurts. It’s awkward. You wonder if you’ve ruined everything. You consider calling in reinforcements. You think about suppositories—metaphorical or otherwise.

And then, finally, something decent-sized emerges.

Relief follows. Not immediately. There are aftershocks. Small intermittent cramps. The system recalibrates.

Colon as metaphor.

Opioids slow you down. Fear slows you down. Perfectionism slows you down. And eventually the only way out is through—gently, with breathing, preferably not straining too hard.

I would like to say I returned heroically to my manuscript afterward.

Instead, I settled back into my recliner, foot elevated and heating pad on my abdomen, marveling at how late-stage civilization allows a woman to narrate her own gastrointestinal crisis to the void while actively taking a shit.

If that’s not creative process, I don’t know what is.