The
Squamidian Report – July 8 / 23
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Unpublished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
****
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.
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