Thoughts on today's Unpleasant Medical Procedure

Sort of anticlimactic, actually. I slept through it. The worst part was the 24-hours of clear liquids, actually--although it turns out I actually sort of like drinking thinned down Jell-O. So that really wasn't so bad. The rest of the prep wasn't nearly as bad as I'd made it out in my head.

Actually, the worst part was getting up at 6:30 am (there's 6:30 AM now?) in order to get dressed and catch the bus to the hospital. Although the IV wasn't much fun, except for the going to sleep part. I may have drifted off before they even started the drugs, come to think about it. The only thing I'm sure I remember was them discussing which drugs and how much.

Gastroscopy and colonoscopy, in case you were wondering. I have vague memory, although it might have been a dream, of the doctor saying something like "okay this is going to be cold and slippery", and then later of having the bed swung around and having something foamy and sharp and cherry flavo(u)red sprayed into my mouth to numb me down for the gastroscope. But I'm not sure at all. All I'm sure about is when I woke up I was back in the recovery room, and felt just fine. And actually kind of rested.

So now I've gotten home, eaten some yummy solid food, and now I'm trying to decide whether to go out and take a nice walk in the almost warm and definitely sunny, or if I should just give up and go take a nap.

The nap idea is winning, but I'm thinking my ever-expanding health-care team would prefer the walk. Maybe I can figure out a way to do both. Ooh.

Homey don't play dat.

But it's soon to be Halloween. Aside from this being the Week of the Unpleasant Medical Procedure (about which more after it happens and I have something to talk about), I have about a dozen things which must happen between now and Friday close-of-biz. But Friday will be Halloween, and I don't do Halloween. Much to the chagrin of the endocrinologist and the nutritionist, I often do the day after Halloween, which means going to the store and looting through all the leftover Halloween candy.

But anyway, I invite all of you who do do Halloween, and particularly those of you who do Halloween and are fans of the 30-second bunny film re-enactments, to visit the Bun-o-ween sound board.

If you don't know about 30-second bunnies, please see their website.

What I should be doing

I should be working on an exam for tomorrow's communication disorders class. I should be cleaning my house, and doing laundry. I should be carefully monitoring my blood sugar and planning my meals accordingly.

What I am doing: Blogging, playing with my sutures, proofreading my two (2) short play script drafts, and watching celebrity poker on video tape.

I did do some tidying in the kitchen. And I have opened the exam file on the computer. It's sitting there as I type this, staring at me.

So I expected any minute now I'll be getting to work. But I'm having fun proofreading my plays.

I'm taking a playwriting class, where the 'goal' of the course was to come up with a useful draft of a 10-minute play. I wasn't sure about the 10-minute format, and didn't want to feel hidebound by it. But it's pretty clear by now that 10 minutes is about all I can generate without boring myself silly. Maybe that's why I never actually finish any projects--even a conference paper is usually 20 minutes long.

So I have two plays, "Bump in the Road" and "Trapped in a Box" I think they'd look good together on a marquis, although they have nothing to do with one another. On the other hand, "Trapped" has an elaborate set, in the sense of having furnishings, and "Bump" is done on an empty stage. Although I suppose that's up to the director.

I suppose my next play should make use of the same sets as "Trapped" to make it worth potentially producing. Hmm.

But first, I guess I should get to the 'distribution draft' stage of these. But first, I guess I should get some work done. Or at least some laundry.

Pre-Thanksgiving update (Too Much Information alert)

I warned you.

Thanksgiving is on Monday (I remind my American readers that I live in Foreign Country). The federal election is on Tuesday (ditto). But Tuesday is special because that's the day some of my sutures come out.

I had oral surgery on Tuesday. Periodontal graft. They took a chunk out of the tissue over my hard palate (for those who care from somewhere inside of my left upper first bicuspid (at least that's about where the sutures are) (that's 24FDI or 12ADA) and grafted it into place around the lingual (inside) base of my left lower first molar (36FDI or 21ADA). Where I had a weird, slit-shaped recession (the periodontist thinks it was my old toothbrush, which had a rotating motion, abrading into my gum over time).

So the upshot is, I've got sutures all over the left side of my mouth, I'm not allowed to chew on that side for a month (which is the only side I can chew on, so scr*w the endocrinologist and nutritionist, it's gonna be a lot of rice and mac-n-cheese this month--as my GP said 'well, you gotta do what you gotta do'. But on Tuesday the upper sutures come out which are the ones that are really bugging me.

The lower one, on the other hand, has a very long end that actually extends above my occlusal line. I'm wondering if I tore something out. But since nothing hurts, or even is sensitive, I'm not worried about it. We'll let the periodontist worry about it on Tuesday.

So in the end, I skipped yoga on Tuesday night. I was warned not to do any exercise on Tuesday. And since I still seem to be oozing from somehwere (rusty stains on my tongue and around my lips when I wake up) I think Down(ward facing)Dog and forward folds are off the table for a while. On the other hand, it's Saturday noonish, and I'm enjoying some yog(o)urt with fake bananas Foster sauce on it for brunch even as we speak.

Thursday I had may annual physical. Things are fine, or at least nothing new is obviously popping up, and everything else seems to be under some kind of control. But. At this exam, I had my first, well, "That" exam. Most men over 50 will know what I'm talking about. Under 50 but with family history might. Under 30, you know nothing.

Now I've been dreading this. Not that I'm squeamish or particularly sensitive or afraid of anything 'down there'. But I don't see 'down there' as a prime recreational area. And contrary to what some may think, 'in there' is completely unknown territory for me.

Turns out, not so big a deal. Turns out 'it' isn't even that far 'in there'. Certainly not as far as I thought it was. And 'it' seems to be healthy, which apparently makes the whole thing very quick and easy. The exam I mean. So in the end, not so bad. Not that I want to make a habit of it, but I can cope.

So as long as we're tlking about 'down there', I'm going in for a colonoscopy (and gastroscopy, which frankly freaks me out more) at the end of the month. As I may or may not have mentioned anywhere, my last set of blood tests indicated some weak anemia (low hemoglobin, high iron bindability or something like that), so I was off to the GI guy to make sure I'm not bleeding somewhere important. So he wants to check me out, stem to stern as it were. Which I know is unpleasant, but I figure it's not a big deal. I mean if Katie Couric can do it, on televison no less, I can cope.

What I'm not looking forward to is the prep. Which involves only two days of dietary restriction and, um, pharmaceutical help cleaning everything out. But that sounds like the part of the process that is going to be the least pleasant. I've been advised to back off some of my meds so I don't go hypo(glycemic) and need to eat something at the wrong moment.

But October is turning out to be a Festival of Unpleasant Procedures.

For that reason, I've just decided to not put up an October spectrogram (for those of you who care). I just can't spare the time to think about it right now. I've got things half set up, so I can probably finish that for November, but I'm not pushing myself.

I probably should be--it's good discipline--but this month is not shaping up to be much fun.

I <heart> Beaker

There will always be a special place in my heart for Kermit the Frog and Lew Zealand, but Beaker is probably my favorite muppet. And Animal is a close second. Watch for his cameo.

I <heart> Pear William

No, that has nothing to do with my new grand nephew. I've been enjoying St. Dalfour no-sugar-added spreads for a while now. A the store the other day, I came across a flavo(u)r I've never seen before (and isn't on their webiste) called "Pear William". I love pears, so I tried it, and I <heart> it. I've been coming up with excuses for PBJ (toast, tortillas, crackers, breakfast, supper, dessert) just to have more. Yum.

Things I need to do with my new laptop

1. do something about the October mystery spectrogram
   
2. do something about my treatment assignment for playwriting
   
3. figure out how I can log on with the laptop and not with the desktop machine (I think the laptop is both more sensitive, and 6 feet closer to the relevant router)
   

There's a whole raft of things I should be doing, but I'm going to spend most of tomorrow in bed, working on my playwriting assignment and putting together a mystery spectrogram. Cuz I can do that in bed now. Gotta love it.