It´s funny because I started monitoring my trash a little before the assignment. Not for ecological reasons but for health-related issues. For over half a month ago I had noticed there was blood in my stool. In the beginning, I didn´t think much of it, I thought I had eaten too much popcorn and had hurt myself going to the bathroom. So, I brushed it off, but a couple of days later the blood was back. This time I had significantly more blood. The toilet paper I used was soaked in blood. This was not the popcorn anymore. The days went by and the amount of blood-soaked toilet paper in my garbage bin was alarming. It looked like I was covering up a crime scene. For some reason, I thought the problem was going to go away by itself. So, I tried to be patient.
But obviously, it wasn’t going to go away that simply. It took our house cleaner to notice the trash in my bin to tell me I had to go to the doctor. I was still in deny thinking I had a severe condition and didn’t want to find out. Out of pure concern, my mom got involved in the situation, from Chile (she is currently there). The news of what was in my trash had travelled all the way to Chile and from there, my mother arranged a doctor’s appointment for me.
I had snapped out from my denial and went to the doctor (proctologist). He was quite nice and talented. I lost any restraints I had with doctors seeing me partially naked. Once I got my medicines I started my treatment. For those who are actually reading this and want to know why I was bleeding, I had an anal fissure. I really don´t know how I got it. So, I went back home and started applying my medication.
This coincided with the week of trash observation. The first change in my trash is that I stopped fearing the blood in my trash, now I knew it was a simple fissure. Then the redness in my trash started decreasing slowly. There were now new additions to my trash, the cream appliers and pill sachets. While the blood has not left 100%, in a week through observing my trash I could see how I lost my fear to the unknown blood, understood where it came from and started treating it. So yeah, pay attention to your trash if you notice any weird patterns look for help. Going to the proctologist is cooler than you think, trash can tell you more than your zodiac sign. Pay attention to your trash, especially the one in your bathroom. Trash doesn’t lie.
Ps. I took pictures but they are pretty nasty and I´m already going out of my comfort zone by sharing this I think those pictures are unnecessary.