The Unpublished Issues

Online Versions Of This And Past Issues

(Choose the year and then the date for the online issue you want)

Issue #1102

Long weekends.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate long weekends? Yes, I suppose I have. But the thing is, I really hate them. They are a nuisance, the town becomes packed with people, the highway becomes a dangerous place to be. The traffic becomes so heavy that it can’t move and everyone ends up sitting in a big long parking lot. That brings out the worst in many idiots and what was dangerous becomes extremely dangerous. The grocery stores become over run with city people who are madly dashing to some camp ground or back road ditch. Gas prices go even higher. WE end up sheltering in our house, afraid to go anywhere. Enough said.

The scourge of age, colonoscopy's.

One of the advantages of writing in these not published issues is that I can write things that I’d never share with the Squid readers or anyone else for that matter. Like the required preparations for having a colonoscopy. They are not fun (the requirements, not the readers). It used to be that you had to fast for one day, that being the day before, and then ‘purge’ the night before. That was bad enough. Now, you have to limit your diet to clear fluids and a very restricted list of foods on the two days prior to that day before. On those two days you can’t eat anything with fiber in it, the very fiber you are supposed to eat for all sorts of health reasons. No fruit, not berries, no nuts, not grains and so on. It makes for a very limited and boring time. Then, on that ‘day before’, you can’t eat anything at all and can only drink clear fluids such as water and ginger ale and white apple juice. That makes for a long grumpy day.

Then, at about the time you’d be sitting down to a nice dinner, you have to ingest the crap (pardon the pun) that starts the process of cleaning you out. That stuff tastes terrible. It’s followed by two litters of water over the next hour or so. Not much happens for a while and then you feel an urge. Don’t be out on a walk or any such thing because you only have a few seconds to get to the can. Once there, you experience a rather satisfying dump that comes shooting out as if it were pressurized. Then, nothing more happens for the time being but the ordeal is certainly not over. You go to bed early because there is nothing else to do and you are afraid of being too far from the can. After reading for an hour you drift off to a fitful sleep, knowing you have to get up at 3:30am to take the second dose of the industrial strength laxative. So, at 3:30 you mix that second dose, chug it down as fast as possible in order to limit you taste bud exposure, and then start working on downing another two litters of water. By this time you hate the taste of water and any other acceptable liquid. Within about an hour you find yourself back on the can as you innards work on flushing themselves. The instructions say that the results must be clear but they are not so you must continue to force down even more water, another two litters.

Eventually you are at the point where the clarity of the expelled product is going to have to do and then you head for the shower and then wait until it’s time to head for the hospital (thankfully or local little hospital and not one in the city) in order to have the procedure done. From this point on everything is out of your hands so in some ways it’s easier, you just do what you are told and go with the flow.

In my case my appointment was for 9:25am so ‘the wife’ drove me there with 10 minutes to spare, just in case traffic was slow or whatever. I check in at registration and then wait an hour to be called. Can’t win. Once the call comes it’s a lonely walk down a corridor, through some big doors that are hard to open because they have an ‘inmate’ who keeps trying to escape. Once I find the pre-opp room I am taken in and handed a basket of hospital cloths I’m supposed to put on, and the same basket will hold my street cloths. Been there, done that, don’t like it at all but it has to be. There is a bunch of questions to be answered and then it’s in to the OR where they get you settled onto a bed thing and then stick a needle into the back of your hand so they can administer the knock-out drugs, and they pull an oxygen mask over you face. I remember my hand feeling warm and becoming very relaxed and then I opened my eyes in a different room. I remarked to the nurse that I was in a different room and she said yes, you are in recovery. You can get dressed now as your wife has been called to come for you.

Not sure if it’s funny or strange, but I do not recall getting dressed. I do recall feeling somewhat confused. I do recall the nurse walking me out to the car and making sure I got in ok. I think they are concerned about liability issues. Once home I could eat some real food but wasn’t sure I even wanted any although once I started into some scrambled eggs and toast they sure tasted good.

Did I mention that preparing for a colonoscopy leaves you feeling rather drained?

doug

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This series of ‘unpublished’ issues is my way of keeping track of what I’ve been up to during the summer when we are not sending out the normal Squamidian. No one knows about these issues but that’s ok. This also keeps the issue number in sync with the passing weeks.