April 11th, 2008

When he was a younger lad, my brother was more rambunctious than he is these days. And so, it came as no surprise to anyone in the family that a game of tackle football left him urinating blood on the way to the emergency room.

The ER staff, however, weren’t as concerned. “He’s ruptured a kidney”, they said, “it’ll have to come out.”

“The right one?” our mother asked.

“No.”

“The left one, then.”

“No, the other one.”

Turns out, he had three kidneys, and he broke the extra one.

Imagine my surprise then when I discovered today that genetic anomalies run in the family.

Seems I have an extra butt.

Wednesday, my back started hurting. Hurting bad. By Wednesday afternoon I could hardly stand upright, and went home from work early. The pain continued through yesterday, and I was finally able to get in to see the chiropractor today. After a few x-rays, it was discovered that my sacrum has a congenital twin growing out of the top of it, another sacrum except in miniature. If you draw a line between the tops of your hip bones, your 5th lumbar should run right through the center of that line - mine’s about a half inch above it.

So what does this mean, aside from lowering my genetic viability in the eyes of Valette’s lizard brain? It means that, in Hank Hill fashion, my butt will disappear over time as my spine curves under.

It also means that, when my weight fluctuates, my back will be the first to know. I’ve abandoned all sodas and processed sugar drinks and have been living on carbonated water for the last month. I’m down almost 10 pounds since I made that switch. Apparently, the extra weight was putting strain on my tailbone and shedding a few pounds gave it just enough room to start to go back into place, which is why it started hurting so bad.

And, yes, it’ll probably mean painful and dangerous spinal surgery later in life.

But in the mean time, it means I get to tell people I have two butts.