A Word or Two About Colonoscopies

Two days ago I checked in for a routine colonoscopy and discovered, much to my surprise, that I am 54 years old. This was quite a shock, as I was fairly certain I was still 53. At this rate, I’ll be well on my way to 60 in no time at all. As it was, I hadn’t eaten for a day and a half and my digestive system had been going through hell since the night before, so I’m fairly certain I looked at least 54, maybe even 55.

Should I be sad about my impending old age? I mean, what’s the alternative? If I weren’t progressing chronologically I wouldn’t be alive, would I? So isn’t aging the better option?

I could be stubborn about the entire thing and claim that I want neither to be dead, nor to be aging, but that sort of viewpoint is rather illogical, isn’t it? It’s not as if mother nature is playing a cruel joke on me or anything. I’m fairly certain that everyone else is going through the same sort of thing – unless one’s a vampire, but then there’s whole “can’t be out in the sun” issue. I’m not sure it’d be a good trade-off.

It’s not the aging that bothers me, it’s the pain in my legs and being so tired I could really use a good nap right about now. Those things have nothing to do with age however, so I can’t lay the blame on the calendar, as much as I would like to blame someone.

But there are so many good things about aging! In no particular order:

1.  No one expects me to look like I’m 20 anymore. This is good, since even at 20 I didn’t look like I was 20.
2.  I’m wiser now than I was then. That’s not saying a hell of a lot, since being wise isn’t a) all it’s cracked up to be, and b) not something I’m really good at, even now. But still.
3.  AARP has me on their radar and sends me lots of lovely junk mail.
4. I can turn down invitations with “I’m old and feeble, and so therefore can’t go.” This usually gets me a disdainful look, but I’m too old to care.
5. I can start planning for my retirement! You know, the one that I won’t be able to take for a good many years yet since I have a teeny little retirement account.
6. I no longer have to wonder, “Should I have kids, or should I not?” Really, it’s sort of late to think of things like that.
7. I get to have routine things like colonoscopies!

II   I think number 7 is definitely the best part of being older. I had so much fun not eating for a whole day, then ingesting vile fluid that turned my insides to fluid, which had to come out repeatedly over and over again all night, then the next morning, when I got to ingest more vile fluid. While I was doing so, I was thinking: Really? This is necessary? They can’t figure out a better way to take a look at things? This is modern medicine at its finest?

Everyone says a colonoscopy is no big deal. And they’re absolutely correct. It’s the prep that sucks the most, and the colonoscopy itself is a breeze, mostly because I had no idea what was going on when it was going on. Afterwards I was ready for a huge meal, and then a long nap.

I know what happens when one doesn’t get diagnosed in time, and so how important a colonoscopy is. My friend Stew, who stars in An Uncommon Friendship: a memoir of love, mental illness, and friendship, didn’t get one when he needed one, and he was only in his mid 30’s, so it hadn’t come up. Instead, he was subjected to all other kinds of tests and diagnoses and procedures, and by the time they got around to figuring out he had colon cancer, it was too late, and it had already spread to his liver. I watched from a distance as he grew worse, and then I was there with him for his last days, and I sat with him and told him everything would be okay.

“Okay” when one is dying doesn’t mean the same thing as when one is not dying.

For months he threw up everything he ate, and even during those last days, anything ingested came back up, even a few sips of a smoothie. We couldn’t even give him morphine orally because it would come up also. Instead, he received topical morphine, rubbed into his arm.

Here’s what I have to say about colonoscopies: If you’re of the age when you should be screened, get one. Seriously. It’s a major pain in the ass (pun intended), and I’m happy knowing I won’t have to do it for another ten years, but it’s better to find out if there’s something going on sooner rather than later. Early detection = better chance of beating it. This is coming from someone who tends toward the “whatever” philosophy regarding her own health, so if I were you, I’d listen.

I don’t want to watch anyone else die from colon cancer. I’d rather everyone get old with me.

The Queen Gives Us A Scare

Our oldest dog, Honey, is 14 or so. She's aged very gracefully, much better than I have, and at the last vet visit was declared in fabulous health fora dog her age. Still, knowing she's 14, we're on the lookout for any signs that things may be going awry.

Going awry happens to all of us eventually, doesn't it?

Late last night we were hanging out on the couch, as we tend to do late at night when we're considering going to bed but not yet up to making the long trek up the stairs. Ash was probably laying next to me with his head in someone's lap, or close to it, probably me, since he finds me very comforting. We saw Honey get up from the carpet and walk towards the kitchen, behind us. She does this sort of thing all the time. "Should I lay here? Should I lie there?" She still has trouble with lay and lie, not knowing which is the appropriate word. It's okay -- she's a dog and not expected to have perfect grammar.

We heard her lay down, behind us, on the floor, which she seems to like because it's cool, and then we heard scrambling and thrashing.

Scrambling and thrashing are not sounds we're used to, though occasionally she slips on the hardwood floor and then tries to cover it up by acting as if she meant to do it all along. Andrew looked over the couch and I said, "What's going on over there?" I can't see back there because my head doesn't do 180 degree turns. I  blame my parents for not producing something more functional when they made me.

"I don't know," he said, "But . . . "

And then he jumped up and ran to her. "There's something wrong!"

I ran to her also, as did Ash, who regards Honey with all the reverence due a supreme being.

Her head was at an awkward angle, twisted so that her left eye appeared to be bulging because of the angle of her neck, and she looked desperate and unhappy and confused. We knelt by her and tried to move her head, but it wouldn't move, and her desperation didn't seem to be dissipating, despite the fact the three of us were standing over her like avenging angels. Of course, it wasn't avenging angels she needed, it was help of some sort, if only us stupid humans could figure it out.

"We need to take her to the vet," I said, and Andrew went looking for the number to the emergency vet.

We recently used the emergency vet when Ash consumed chocolate chocolate cake to celebrate my birthday, so we know which one to go to.

As Andrew looked up the info I stayed with Honey, and I petted her and told her everything was going to be okay. Then I looked at her as a whole, instead of focusing on her head and her bulging panicked eyes. "Hey," I said to the poor thing, "Where's your other leg?" I could see one back leg on the side she was laying on, it was right there where it was supposed to be, on the floor, but the other one, where was it? The one leg was there, but there should have been two legs. When last I saw her she had two back legs, not just one.

Did I mention that this year Honey has grown a fabulously healthy thick long coat? It's gold and soft and fabulous, and things can get lost in there.

Like legs.

I found her other back leg at her neck. She'd broken a toenail on that foot, and when she'd been scratching herself up at her neck, or ears, the toe had caught in some of that luxurious fur and was stuck there. My dog was not having a seizure, or an attack of some sort, and she wasn't anywhere close to being terminal. She just had her toe stuck to her fur, which was why her head was twisted to the side with the toe attached to it.

Oh sure, it's funny now.

I yelled out that she was fine, that I'd found the problem and what I really needed was a pair of scissors, because that fur was not going to be dislodged easily. Andrew couldn't find the scissors, and as he ran around looking for them I tried to separate her toe from the fur that was quite attached to it. Just as he gave up on the scissors and brought me a knife I separated the toe, with the hair coming loose in a big clump, and Honey was free.

She was shaking quite a bit by then, no doubt more alarmed by my panic than by the fact that her toe was stuck to her neck, so I sat down with her in the living room and we calmed each other down while I cut off the offending toenail. I tried another toenail as well, but she wasn't ready to have anything else done, so I made an appointment with her to do some more grooming on both toes and fur today. If she cancels on me she has to pay a cancellation fee.

She's fine, and she says the only problem is that she would like to have servants who are a bit quicker with a diagnosis. I told her too bad, she's stuck with us.

The Death of My Father

Wednesday night while I sat at the airport, waiting for my sister to pick me up and take me to the hospital where my father lay dying, my father’s heart stopped for the very last time.

My timing is often off, but this is a new level of inept, even for me.

                

My father and I had our differences, though I think he was unaware of them. Okay, so I had my issues. The last time we talked on the phone he’d called me, which was unusual because he usually waited for me to call so he could complain about how long it’d been since he’d heard from me. But he needed to talk, and I heard from him a deeper level of sadness than I’d heard before. He was tired, he was sick, he had outlived his siblings, and he was, as far as I could tell, just waiting.

He’d been waiting for years. He didn’t expect to live to the age of 83, so when he did, he didn’t know what to do with himself. Around thirty years ago I was told I’d better get home for Christmas that year, because he wasn’t expected to live much longer. His heart was going. He’d had a stroke, a heart attack, lost a kidney, and he was, according to his doctors, a walking time bomb.

So I traveled from Europe to be there for Christmas, and can you believe it? He kept on living. I didn’t mind so much. It was a relief to have him still around.

We expect our parents to just keep going, to always be there because they always have been, and then suddenly they’re not, and it’s as if they’ve abandoned us. This is because they have abandoned us. The nerve of them.

During our last phone conversation I let him talk, as I always did, because he did love to talk. Mostly about himself of course – his world had become so small that all he really knew about was himself, and so he talked and he talked and he talked, and I’d interject the appropriate comments when needed. He was insistent on staying in his own apartment, though it wasn’t feasible. He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t take care of himself, but he didn’t want to go in a facility, and he didn’t want to pay anyone to take care of him. I told him we just wanted what was best for him, because we only wanted what was best for him. My sister was at his beck and call for years, and he counted on her to keep him in his own place for . . . ever.

Last week he went into the hospital. He had an infection, he wasn’t well, and they talked of sending him home in a few days, but not home, to a rehab facility, perhaps assisted living after that, but he kept getting worse instead of better, and suddenly decisions had to be made. He never wanted to talk about his wishes, just that he was going to die in his own apartment, thank you very much, though he never shared with us how he saw that happening. Perhaps he would go to sleep one night and not wake up. Perhaps he kept finding himself alive each morning and wondered “what the . . . ?”

He thought about what would happen afterwards, and he prepaid for his cremation. When his wife died, suddenly and unexpectedly of a massive heart attack (she who thought she was going to outlive him and had planned her life for after dad), he had no money, and we, his four kids, paid for what needed to be paid for. We were glad to do it, and one of us was her child too. He didn’t want that to happen again, and so he made sure it wouldn’t. But he didn’t plan for up to that point because how could he? How can you plan for something when it can happen so many different ways?

Maybe he would die quietly one night, his once frail heart giving up, the ticking time bomb finally going off. Perhaps he would die in a car accident. Maybe he’d be stricken with an illness and go slowly. Who knew?

Years ago he had cancer. This was long after his heart attack and his stroke and the loss of his kidney. Or was it two heart attacks? Two strokes or one? No matter. After his wife died he lived alone, and then, one day, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He went into the hospital, they removed his bladder, and he had a long and difficult recovery. But he recovered, cancer free, and after recovery he was moved into an apartment close to my sister.

I was there when we packed up his old apartment, up at Big Bear where he’d lived for years. His move to this apartment had left with fewer possessions, and this next move would leave him fewer still. He didn’t much.

But it seemed like no matter what happened to try to kill him, he’d just slough it off and keep going. And then he has the nerve to not even wait an extra hour for me to get from the airport to the hospital. Can you believe that? I got here as fast as I could. I made plane reservations, packed, got to the airport, made it through security in record time, even trying out the new scanner thingy, made it to my gate when they were doing last call, and got on the plane. Gosh darn it, I was going to be there to be with him!

I’m good with dying people. I’m good at sitting with them and holding a hand, or listening to them if they can or want to talk, and I’m good at being a calming influence. I can sit for hours next to their bed, just in case they need me. I can tell them what they need to hear, and I can reassure them. I can make sure they’re not alone. (It’s the living I have a problem with. The dying are easy.) He had no appreciation for any of my other talents, but this was one that I could use, and then he dies before I can swing into action.

Possibly the only thing I could have ever given him, other than the annual slippers he liked for Christmas, and he leaves before I can be useful. I could have been a better daughter, but I wasn’t, and there’s no going back. But that’s okay. We only do what we can when we’re doing it, and there aren’t any do-overs. If there were, so many of us would be doing over we’d never get anywhere at all. Besides, it took me a long time to accept myself the way I am, and damned if I’ll feel guilty now.

He was my dad, and I’ll always remember how hard he tried to take care of us when he was on his own, between wives, a single dad who kept us fed and clothed and secure, and how he gave me some fabulous siblings who I love very much. He produced some awesome human beings (not me, but the others), so he deserves a lot of credit for that. He was stubborn, often difficult, self-centered, and not very imaginative. But so what? I wanted so much to help him – I didn’t want him to suffer, or be in pain, or be sad and alone. And at the end, he had my sister, as he had for years, and she and my brothers, were there for him, and with him. And three out of four ain’t bad, is it? But he knew I was coming, they told him so, and so I expect he knew we all wanted the best for him, whatever form it took. I like to think he was happy at the end. Let’s go with that theory, since there’s no way to know for sure. 

Better Pain

There’s worse pain, and there’s better pain, and I’m currently experiencing better pain, though it sounds worse than it is. Or does it sound better? Less pain, that’s what I mean. I’m not trying to say that I’m a masochist and the quality of the pain is suiting me nicely, thank you very much. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m totally on your side if you’re into pain. I won’t be inflicting the pain because I’m not a sadist either, but yeah, whatever makes you happy.

After a weekend wherein both legs decided it would be fitting to punish me for my lack of attention to their needs (whatever those might be) I’m quite happy to have less pain now. As if the fibromyalgia by itself isn’t bad enough, one knee is also inflamed and has been for weeks. I think the anti-inflammatories are starting to kick in though, just in time for the Thanksgiving Marathon.

This isn’t a real marathon, in case you were wondering where to sign up. It’s the standing in the kitchen type of marathon.

 I wonder how people with real pain, as opposed to my whiny, self-indulgent pain, deal with it. I can well imagine how frustrating and annoying it must be, as well as painful. For weeks I’ve been consigned to keeping off my bad knee, keeping my legs elevated when possible, and cutting down on my trips up and down the stairs. I went to Las Vegas in this condition, knowing it was a bad idea, but committed to a work conference I didn’t want to miss. When I returned home three days later my right knee was twice the size of my left, but the conference was worth it.

Since then, my efforts to keep up the appearance of occasionally taking care of my house have been stymied. I’m fortunate that I have 1) a desk job, and 2) a desk job in my own house, so I can keep the traveling to a minimum. How do people not as lucky as me deal with it? If I had to go to a job every day I’m pretty sure I’d be damn bitchy about it.

Yes. I’m pretty bitchy anyway. It’s always “me, me, me, ow! My legs hurt!” like anyone cares. And really, how bad can it be?

I am extremely lucky in my pain. I may wonder when it will ever end, if it will ever end, because sometimes it seems to go on forever, but that passes, and each day I decide that the next day will be a better pain day, and that I will wake up cured.

Over the weekend, when it was at its worst, I really missed running. I haven’t run in years, and I don’t really wish to return to it now, but the idea of it sounded very appealing, and that’s because, no doubt, I couldn’t do it at all. I used to run, and once, when I was quite a bit younger, I was even fast. I’m no longer fast, and I hobble more than I walk.

We’re often like that, I think. When we can’t do something we weren’t that interested in to begin with, we wish we could do it. It’s the possibility of it that we miss more than anything else.

I don’t, however, wish I could date again. I’m so happy to never have to go through that again. And high school. There’s something I’d never want to repeat. Talk about pain. But running? That wasn’t painful, and while I wasn’t thrilled about it overly much after high school, I could, and did, do it. Wishing I could again isn’t because I miss running, it’s because if I could run, that would mean my legs weren’t all washed up, and if my legs weren’t all washed up, I could do a lot of other things that are hard for me now. Like exercising – I’ve had to stay off the recumbent bike for a few weeks so it sits there in the corner of my office, all sad and forlorn, and I’m thinking that in the next few days I’ll give it a shot again. It misses me so, after all.

To everyone who has pain, I wish you less of it, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional. Whether you have pain or not, I ask that you not inflict any pain on yourself or others. Life has enough pain in it all by itself that we don’t need to make more of it. Everyone gets their share, fair or not, and if there’s anything I could do to alleviate yours, I would. Not to get all sentimental on you or anything, but you often don’t know what pain others are in, so keep that in mind.

Let’s avoid causing pain of any sort, because there’s certainly enough to go around already. Instead, let’s see if we can alleviate pain. It may not make it all better, or any better, but at least we won’t make a bad situation worse.

Anyway, we’ve got Congress for that.

Sorry. I had to slip that one in there. I could just use the generic term government though. All the same to me.

Happy Veterans Day. Really.

We love us our veterans, don’t we? As a peacetime veteran, I’m all about Veterans Day. I didn’t spend several years of my life hanging out in a uniform so I could get a day off once a year, which was just as well since it was many years before I had Veterans Day off. And I wasn’t in when there were conflicts and wars, only pretend let’s-get-ready-just-in-case practices. It was no big deal for me, because I am lucky.

But here it is Veterans Day again, as it rolls around each year, and I want to thank everyone who served. So there you go.

Last week I was in Portland, and on my way home. One of the freeway entrances that I frequent often has people on the corner. Cardboard signs abound, pleas for help, and sometimes cardboard artwork. The clientele differs. Sometimes they’re young and healthy looking, and I wish they had other options than to stand on a corner and wait for people to hand them money.

I know, I’ve been told many times that “they” make more than I do, that “they” could work if they wanted to, and that “they” will just spend any handouts frivolously. I don’t hand out money, but that’s mostly because I never carry cash. And I don’t carry cash because I probably would hand it out. And then there would be none left for me. I wouldn’t hand it out to everyone, but there are times when I see someone and I think, “I wish I could give that person something.” But I can’t do everything I want to do.

On this one day there was only one person on that corner, and he was old, and thin, and his sign said he was a veteran, and he was homeless. He couldn’t move very well, but there he stood, with his cardboard sign, inviting anyone to stop.

Was it true? As far as I know. People have said I should be more suspicious of others, but I’m not, and that’s just the way it’s going to be. He looked like a veteran, worn out and used, and then discarded because, well, he’s no longer much use to us, is he? He can’t be sent overseas to fight, and he can’t be put to good use, so there he is, on the street corner.

“He doesn’t have to be homeless,” people say, but I don’t know. I do know that many are homeless, and many have problems that aren’t addressed because there isn’t enough money to take care of them all, and we easily assume that their problems are because of who they are, not because we’ve let them down.

He reminded me of Fred, my once hospice patient who was also a veteran, until he retired. He went to war, he came home with health issues, and as he was dying he was still awaiting word on whether his exposure to Agent Orange qualified him for disability. He was dying from a respiratory disorder, but the VA said it wasn’t their fault – it was his own fault for smoking.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know.

I’m not nearly as knowledgeable as I would like to be. I don’t have answers, only questions.

On this one day I had a ten dollar bill in my wallet. This happens very infrequently. I pressed the little button on my fancy car that tells the window to roll down, and the man with the sign hobbled over to me. I handed him the ten dollar bill, and then he grasped my hand firmly in his, and told me to enjoy the day, for it was sunny, the sky a clear bright blue. I told him to enjoy the day also, and he smiled, and then the light changed. He hobbled back to his spot, and I drove onto the freeway, lighter for the loss of ten dollars.

Sometimes being lighter is the best thing that can happen to us.

People will say, “He’ll only spend it on booze, you should never give them money,” but I don’t really care. Get this: I don’t even care what he spends it on. That’s his business, not mine. I’m not his mommy, I’m not even a social agency. I gave him a gift of ten bucks, and what he does with it is up to him.

What we do speaks volumes about what we think of our veterans, and no matter what we say, it’s our actions that tell the truth, not platitudes.

My nephew recently came home from war. I want to thank him, and tell him I love him, and I hope he never needs to rely upon the government, for it may let him down. But that doesn’t mean people will. The government is one thing. People are another.

People are what I still have faith in. 

Living On The Edge

Despite my current occupation, I’m a daredevil at heart. Accountants get a lot of bad press, and I’m not sure why. After all, engaging in mortal combat with the IRS isn’t for the faint of heart, is it?

But it’s more than that. It’s a reckless disregard for my personal safety, a willingness to go right to the edge of propriety, a longing for just a bit of almost danger, all while avoiding the IRS because we’re not, y’know, besties or anything.

Today I outdid myself, and I removed all the privacy settings on my Facebook account. I KNOW! I’m courting disaster and I feel all energized!

Since that worked so well for me (though there hasn’t been time yet for my new settings to put me in danger, though I’m sure by nightfall I’ll be totally sorry), I’m also going out to lunch without a knee brace or a patella strap. It’s all about living on the edge, though being unable to get either of those on underneath my jeans helps.

I’m considering having a milkshake on my way home. A totally milk-based product! If that’s not living on the edge, I don’t know what is. (And I’m not just referring to the edge of the toilet seat that’s probably in my future, if I should carry out this plan.)

I may leave my driver’s license at home today. How’s that for potential danger? What if I get pulled over for going 25 in a 45 zone? “License and registration,” the mean cop will say, and I’ll come back with, “Ha! Left my license at home! Now what are you going to do?” I really have no idea. I’ve never done anything as dangerous as this.

I’m just getting started here. I could write myself a really large check, more than I have in my account, and deposit it into another account, hoping I get more checks in the mail today! Well, wait, that’s a little too daredevilish even for me, so we’ll skip that one.

How about this one? I’m not going to floss tonight. Nope. No flossing tonight. Am I courting potential tooth decay and loss of teeth? YES!

I’ll check in later and let you know how it went. If I end up in jail, I’ll be calling for bail money. 

“It’s Like Going to War”

I heard this on a commercial the other day, maybe for The Next Iron Chef. You know, where chefs compete to become television stars, if they aren’t already, by participating in cooking contests. I love a good cooking contest as well as the next person, so don’t get me wrong. Cooking competitions are fun. But apparently for chefs, it’s like going to war.

Really? Are people shooting at them while they’re cooking? Are bombs going off around them? Are IED’s littering the countertops? When they’re done with the competition will they return home with PTSD and an overwhelming urge to assimilate while being unsure how? Will they suffer bouts of anger, depression, and ennui? Or do they run the risk of not returning home at all when one of the competitors decides to Take The Competition Seriously and stabs them with a boning knife?

Okay, it’s true that I have no actual war experience myself. When I was in the military we were, nominally, at peace, and though we played at war for practice, there’s no way it could have been anything like actual war. I was aware of that when I was told to please lay on the body bag and then climb up into the truck myself, because if they’d zipped me up into the bag I’d 1) be unable to breathe, and then 2) gotten hurt when they’d throw my body bag up in into the truck, which is what would have happened if we’d been at war. Also, at the end of the day I got to leave the morgue and go back to . . . work. There’s nothing like a real war to show us that indeed, there’s nothing like war.

War is messy and icky and painful, and at the end the people who do get to come home don’t get awarded with a starring role in a television show. Though that’s not a bad idea, is it?

“It’s like going to war,” except it isn’t. But hey, who am I to say?

We love to exaggerate. Personally, I love to throw things in my writing like, “There’s absolutely nothing worse than . . . “ because, in real life, there are many worse things than whatever I’m saying, and while I’m not sure everyone else gets the irony, I do, so what else matters?

We love to appropriate inappropriate words and use them in a different context, especially if they’re powerful words. A favorite of mine is rape. “I’ve been raped by the government!” “I’ve been raped by big business!” “I’ve been raped by society!”

Whatever. When I hear this I immediately disregard whatever else the speaker is trying to say. If that’s the best they can do to describe what’s happening to them, I’m not inclined to hear any more. Maybe they’re right, and maybe they are being raped by amorphous entities who are holding them down and threatening their lives while . . . well, you know. Rape is a sexual assault. Maybe we should create a new word to describe what people think is rape, but isn’t. You go first. I’ll pick up on it later and find fault with it, if I can.

It’s what I do.

I’m going to work now, which is much like playing at war, in that I get to sit in a comfy office and get paid. At least that’s how I play war, I don’t know about you.