What did I miss?

I will not bore you with what’s and why for’s of the importance of a Colonoscopy or the good work of University Gastroenterology. If your curiosity is peeked there’s always, Google. I’ll even leave out the part about how the colon must be completely cleansed and empty. -Or how the Nulytely bowel cleansing solution eventually causes your bum to rain. I’ll spare you all that and begin with 7:15am yesterday.

A gentleman of the medical cab company rang. He sounded very gruff. He couldn’t find the house. (Oops, I left out the part about how you have to be accompanied to and from a Colonoscopy. Things being as they are, the insurance company provides transportation for such lonely souls as moi.) Moving right along… The salty seaman on the other end of the line told me he would be there in 15 minutes after I repeated the address to him for the third time.

And there he was at 7:30am sharp. I could not believe it. The car reeked of cigarette smoke. It smelled as if he had been locked in the thing for a month or more chain smoking 3 or 4 packs a day. He was even holding a lit smoke. WTF! Isn’t this a medical transport vehicle? With smoke entering my recently cleansed and emptied bowels I immediately felt sick and faint. The driver looked in the rearview mirror, pointed the cigarette towards me and asked, “Does this bother you?” I told him that it did and he flicked it out the window while exhaling a new batch of smoke into the car. Ten minutes later and I was at University Gastroenterology.

Paper work, a very pleasant nurse, a backless gown (as opposed to a back-Les gown which is something entirely different) and I was off to the procedure room. I’m sure it’s called something else but, that will have to do for now. I met the neato keen doctor who almost insisted my age is 10-12 years younger than I actually am. Why doctor, that would make me a teenager… Am I blushing doctor? Give me a minute.

What I recall next was that the nurse injected two different meds. I then woke up about an hour later in the recovery area. A different nurse woke me and told me to get dressed. She was kind of hurried. I looked up at the blood pressure monitor to learn that my BP was back to normal, 106/66 rather than the 138/83 I came in with. “Is it done,” I asked? I had apparently slept through everything. Sorry, I too had hoped for a play by play entry for you my gentle reader. I however, slept through the whole thing! It was kind of like that time when those aliens… Oh, you would never believe me anyway.

BTW: A single tiny polyp was found. Not bad for six feet of abused colon?

It's not you, it's me

I need a vacation! As my mother addressed me last night I secretly thought... "This old gal has completely gone around the bend," as it were. She had just called me by my late father's name. It then occurred to me that I am the third. Sad Face Emoticon.

...last you 'til Jesus.

So, I had my final visit at the dental factory this morning. As I waited in the chair I could clearly overhear the conversation from the room directly across the hall. (Do not ask me why the doors were open) Across the way an elderly woman of at least 85 years appeared confused. She was accompanied by her son, a very tall guy who was loosing his patience. The old gal had apparently been a stroke victim and was on a great deal of medication the son told the dental assistant. "She sometimes thinks she has pain in her mouth." "I do have pain," the woman shouted. The assistant tried to explain that she had a full set of dentures and therefore could not possibly have a horrible toothache as she explained. The old woman demanded that Xrays be taken. To appease her the son and the assistant agreed. A short time later as I still waited I could hear the conversation heating up. While my back was to them I imagine that the Xrays were presented to the old woman as it was explained that she had no teeth and therefore could not have the pain she described. She even had great bone loss so, there was no where for the pain to originate. The old gal was angry now. Don't tell her... she knows whether or not she is/was in pain.

The assistant decided to get the dentist. The doctor carefully explained what had already been presented. The dentist asked how old her dentures were. "Eight years," was the reply. "Well, why don't we make you a new pair?" The doctor suggested that maybe the dentures were not fitting properly. The old woman finally agreed and was told she would be fitted for new dentures. The problem now was getting her to understand that; 1, she had to wait a month for them to be finished and 2, that these new dentures would solve her phantom pain. "Momma, they will be good. They will last you forty years. They will last you until you see Jesus again," the son told her. There was an awkward silence and then the old woman paraphrased her son, "last me 'til Jesus?" The Jesus time-space-continuum was something she could understand. The woman now apologized and attributed her orneriness to her stroke. The son completely tapped emotionally at this point excused himself to go out and have a cigarette while the dental impressions were made.

My over-active branding brain thought, "what a great branding opportunity." When the dentist finally came in to attend to me, I suggested a branding experience based on the concept of "dentures being so well made that they would, last you 'til Jesus." While the doctor found this very humorous and reminded me to repeat it here, she did not believe that most of her customers would buy it, pun intended.