It is approaching my 7-year anniversary of my herniated disc back surgery.

Which also marks the 7-year anniversary of my hell known as “a pinched sciatic nerve.” The pinching of my sciatic nerve brought me to a neurosurgeon who performed immediate surgery after getting the MRI back.

So, you know, that was a fun weekend.

I found out I had a herniated disc mainly because of back pain.

It turns out that the back pain was also causing “sciatica,” which is Latin for “YOU WILL FEEL LIKE YOUR TOES ARE BEING PULLED OUT OF YOUR RIGHT ASS CHEEK AND YOU WILL BEGIN PRAYING FOR THE INEVITABLE RELEASE OF SWEET SWEET DEATH.”

(loose translation)

If you don’t know what the sciatic nerve is, I’ve drawn you a picture:

When this nerve gets pinched by a bulging or herniated disk or someone “pinching your inch” while checking out how your Special-K diet is going, it causes a pain similar to what it must feel like for Matthew Broderick to open his eyes every morning and see what is sleeping next to him.

Oh the pain. The hideous, hideous pain.

Now because of this searing pain, I could not actually sit or stand or lie down or tie my shoes or make toast or make toast while lying down tying my shoes without screaming like a midget on his first day in the general population of a prison filled with gay level-3 sex offending porn stars suffering from elephantitus of the penis and overly sharp genital warts.

But the WORST part of having your sciatic nerve pinched?

Pooping.

You knew that was coming. Admit it.

With sciatica it’s virtually IMPOSSIBLE to get comfortable sitting down which is usually required for pooping unless you’re in Europe or in a gas station restroom, like this one:

This is because your leg feels like it’s going to literally pop off and shoot across the room and next thing you know the dog is playing with it and oh, great, now the dog is humping it.

But, aside from the dog humping your dismembered leg in the living room, pooping with sciatica is a task that should be an event on Fear Factor.

Let me do this visually for you.

HOW TO TRY TO POOP WITH SCIATICA:

#1: Single Leg Stretch Sciatica Pooping

This is where you somehow manage to get your pants down but since you can’t actually BEND your leg you’re forced to stretch the problem leg STRAIGHT OUT in front of you which is not conducive to ANY type of effective bowel release and since you’re now completely off balance you have to brace yourself with one hand on the back of the toilet to keep yourself from falling.

However..since you can only stay in one position for 12 seconds..you must now try:

#2: Motorcycle Sciatica Pooping

Option #2 is only available if you have a wall directly in front of you that’s close enough to lean to, but not so far away that you run the risk of falling forward and thusly shitting all over yourself which, honestly, you’re doing anyway because there’s NO WAY IN HELL you can get your ass cheeks apart if your legs are flailed in different angles like you’re the main attraction at Cirque de Soleil.

For Option #2, you sit on the toilet and throw your feet BEHIND you while simultaneously brace yourself on the wall in front of you.

Like you’re riding a motorcycle.

The worst. Motorcycle. Ever.

This position lasts all of a minute when you realize you’ve just shit all over the toilet tank and now YOU’RE FUCKING KIDDING ME MY CALF IS TWITCHING?! REALLY?!

So you must consider:

#3: Flashdance Sciatica Pooping

Flashdance Sciatica Pooping (FSP) is a more advanced form of Single Leg Sciatica Pooping (SLSP) so proceed with extreme caution and maybe fill out some sort of waiver or some shit.

You basically throw BOTH legs out in front of you and lean back as far as you can like that chick in the movie “Flashdance” but instead of being all sexy in tights and legwarmers (optional) and having water splash down on you you’re pretty much just trying to take a shit without screaming.

Now that you’ve mastered these techniques you realize that you’ve now spent a total of 15 minutes in the bathroom hemming and hawing and have pooped a little Corn Pop sized turd and now you have to try to somehow WIPE YOUR ASS which is a whole other post entirely.

Suffice it to say, the easiest sciatica poo-wiping method is a one-legged-Flashdance-motorcycle FIASCO. So not easy at all, really.

Sciatica: Taking the fun out of pooping since the Latin people invented it.

My surgery was wildly successful and my sciatic nerve went back to being an unpinched glorious nerve and I’ve been able to poop and wipe without issues for the past seven years. Most of my BM’s have been pain-free, save that one time I tried “Mad Dog Hot Sauce” on a jalapeno pepper.

Still not worse than sciatica, though.

True story.