Friday, August 14, 2009
No Big C for Me
It's been a year, so time for another colonoscopy.
After last year's cancer scare, which turned out to be just a few polyps, it was time for a 1-year follow up. The procedure itself isn't so bad -- I'm asleep for it mostly, and even when I'm not, I've got some good meds keeping me calm -- but the prep for it the day before is no fun. For the doctor to see what all is inside, the colon has to be empty. Completely empty. I'll spare the details.
Like last year, Stan was there with me, since I can't drive afterwards because of the sedatives. The nurse aked hm, "you look so young...do you mind if I ask how old you are?" When he told her he's 24, she said "good...you beat our minimum by 3 years." So yeah, she was concerned he might be under 21. Hahaha
Another nurse said to me later, "I can't believe you're 43...you look like you're in your 20s." Sounds like she took the sedatives meant for me. But I'll take it.
As they took me into the procedure room and hooked me up to the monitors, the alarm on te heart monitor sounded. My pulse was down around 48 (I later saw it go as low as 42). The nurse asked, "do you work out or something?" I said yeah, I run marathons, and when the alarm would go off every few minutes I'd hear her tell people, "it's ok, he's a marathoner."
I woke up during the procedure, and when the nurse noticed she told me they gave me less of the sedative than last year, but they could give me more and knock me back out. But I was watching it on TV, seeing what I looked like inside, and I told her I'd rather stay awake. They'd found a polyp, and it was in a tricky location, so I watched (and felt) as they removed it. It took a little while, though, and it was starting to get a little painful. Even after the polyp was out I could feel the camera/blowtorch, or whatever is on that tool, bouncing around inside me. I was about to ask them to knock me out again, but it turned out they were removing it from me and were done a few seconds later. At least I didn't get hard.
Stan drove me to lunch and then home, and like last year, he got to hear some stories from my past. Among other things, I told him about each of the people in DC I'd had a crush on at some point.
Karma caught up with me later. I'd decided that, come Friday afternoon, I was going to "feel uncomfortable" as an excuse to leave work, then go hang out with Linh, who had the day off. Anyway, by Thursday night I did indeed have some stomach pain going on, feeling like a bad stomach cramp. That's what I get for planning to fib. But I went into the office Friday morn, did more work in 4 hours than most of my collegues do in three days, then took off. The universe might punish me, but the office still gets its moneys worth out of me.
After last year's cancer scare, which turned out to be just a few polyps, it was time for a 1-year follow up. The procedure itself isn't so bad -- I'm asleep for it mostly, and even when I'm not, I've got some good meds keeping me calm -- but the prep for it the day before is no fun. For the doctor to see what all is inside, the colon has to be empty. Completely empty. I'll spare the details.
Like last year, Stan was there with me, since I can't drive afterwards because of the sedatives. The nurse aked hm, "you look so young...do you mind if I ask how old you are?" When he told her he's 24, she said "good...you beat our minimum by 3 years." So yeah, she was concerned he might be under 21. Hahaha
Another nurse said to me later, "I can't believe you're 43...you look like you're in your 20s." Sounds like she took the sedatives meant for me. But I'll take it.
As they took me into the procedure room and hooked me up to the monitors, the alarm on te heart monitor sounded. My pulse was down around 48 (I later saw it go as low as 42). The nurse asked, "do you work out or something?" I said yeah, I run marathons, and when the alarm would go off every few minutes I'd hear her tell people, "it's ok, he's a marathoner."
I woke up during the procedure, and when the nurse noticed she told me they gave me less of the sedative than last year, but they could give me more and knock me back out. But I was watching it on TV, seeing what I looked like inside, and I told her I'd rather stay awake. They'd found a polyp, and it was in a tricky location, so I watched (and felt) as they removed it. It took a little while, though, and it was starting to get a little painful. Even after the polyp was out I could feel the camera/blowtorch, or whatever is on that tool, bouncing around inside me. I was about to ask them to knock me out again, but it turned out they were removing it from me and were done a few seconds later. At least I didn't get hard.
Stan drove me to lunch and then home, and like last year, he got to hear some stories from my past. Among other things, I told him about each of the people in DC I'd had a crush on at some point.
Karma caught up with me later. I'd decided that, come Friday afternoon, I was going to "feel uncomfortable" as an excuse to leave work, then go hang out with Linh, who had the day off. Anyway, by Thursday night I did indeed have some stomach pain going on, feeling like a bad stomach cramp. That's what I get for planning to fib. But I went into the office Friday morn, did more work in 4 hours than most of my collegues do in three days, then took off. The universe might punish me, but the office still gets its moneys worth out of me.
Labels: Health
