Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Colonoscopies - real and metaphorical

Today I had my first colonoscopy, which I really should have done years ago after my aunt died of colon cancer, my cousin (then in his 20s) discovered it and had part of his colon removed, plus our grandfather having died of it in the 80s. But, better late than never, right?

I had a lot of fear and anticipation going into it, partially the fear of “finding something” of course, but mostly of the prep part which everyone who’s been through it volunteered to tell me how horrible it was. So under Kaiser, as much as five days ahead of the procedure you have to stop eating any high fiber foods or foods with seeds or peels - basically, all fruit and vegetables, beans, legumes, seeds, and nuts, which pretty much constitutes my entire diet. Then the day before it’s liquids only (the gnarliest fast I’ve ever done), plus force-consuming four miserable liters of prep liquid. So it was basically a multi-day torture session. But I did it, and went into the hospital, and they poked and prodded me endlessly to find my non-existent veins, they gave me the medicine, the room became a tin can, and I woke up in another room after having dreamed about some friends that lost their house in the fires. 

I allowed myself to eat multiple donuts today in celebration of having gotten past this Big Scary Thing, which was probably a mistake. The results? One small-ish polyp to be sent for a biopsy. I’m not overly concerned. The size/type apparently rarely turn out to be cancerous. I had hoped someone would comment on my pristine 40-years-with-no-red-meat colon, but no such compliments were offered. Ha!

I’ve mostly been lying in bed watching Korean dating shows and eating donuts (stopping only to make the kids dinner and make sure they do homework and fold their laundry) under the guise of “recovering”, but really, I felt completely normal about an hour after the procedure. However, I can see why they don’t want you driving home. Hoo boy. 

So with having croaked my way through two nights of singing with the orchestra (still congested and coughing, five weeks later-!), introducing myself back into society after self-isolating for a month, and now having survived the colonoscopy, most of the things giving me massive anxiety are now behind me. No pun intended.

But of course the metaphorical colonoscopy continues in the form of this treasonous illegal regime headed by a con man and felon (and, apparently, Nazi side kicks). I had hoped that the “shock and awe” portion would have been mostly last week, but of course the daily outrages continue. We really are watching the American Experiment die in real time. Everyone I talked to at the dance event was in horror of it all; that and the fires was on everyone’s mind. Not much more to say about that except yup, it’s everything I had feared and yet more. Eighty years of fighting for equality and fighting against fascism wiped out in one week. Un fucking real. 




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