Came Through on the Other Side

So I got through my colonoscopy okay. I survived. Intestines are in fine shape, no polyps. And the sword of Damocles that has been hanging over my head now for days is removed.

A friend drove me to the hospital in town and back this morning. Much of the time for the procedure was spent waiting, lying on my back in a hospital gown. The colonoscopy itself... oddly enough, I wasn't asleep. I was sedated but awake throughout the procedure. I was aware, I could feel it, but I just didn't care. I just didn't care what they were doing to me.

Lunch in the hospital cafeteria, and then home. And I've been spending the afternoon in bed, napping, getting up to have something to eat or drink once in a while.

I've been off work yesterday and today. And just in case, tomorrow I've scheduled so I can spend the day alone on quiet office work.

GoLytely

Today I've been getting along on a liquid diet. And now this afternoon I've been drinking GoLytely, and running to the bathroom every once in a while. So far, so good -- I honestly don't understand all the horrors of GoLytely that I've heard, I've drunk nearly half the gallon down now and everything has gone very smoothly, I feel fine.

Still, I'll be so glad once I've got my colonoscopy tomorrow out of the way. Ah, the joys of being past 50! This whole procedure has been preoccupying me out of all proportion these past several days...

Crouching

Well, the doctor phoned me to answer my questions not ten minutes after yesterday's post, LOL!

Now it's the weekend, and I find myself like an animal crouching in the underbrush, crouching, crouching...

Random thoughts strike me: I ought to water my houseplants, forgot yesterday to water them on Friday as usual. Do I need to run out for groceries today, or can I let that go till tomorrow? Christmas shopping needs to be done, three months to go, and still less than halfway done. I wonder if, due to my health, I should think of retiring before age 65, instead of sticking it out all the way as I've always planned. A friend sent me three emails yesterday, each begging for a reply; but I just replied to an email from this friend day before yesterday, so I honestly don't feel like assuming additional epistolary burdens again right away, dammit! Oh, and I need more poison bait bits to set out in garage, basement, attic, it's getting to be that time of year with the mice again...

Like an animal in the underbrush, crouching, crouching... And my mind is a blur...

Rain

The rain forecast for yesterday has finally arrived, and it's just what we need: slow, steady rain that's been falling all morning, and bids to continue on into the afternoon.

I've been tackling various minor tasks this morning, overshadowed now by the fact that I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy next week -- ah, the joys of advanced middle age! -- and I've called the doctor's office and I can't get the doctor or a nurse or anyone to return my call with an answer to the very simple question, how soon beforehand should I lay off my medications? You know, the medications I first started on only a few weeks ago.

With the weekend at hand, and the day next week drawing nearer, it would be nice to know.

Lazy

There are days when I just know, before the day even begins, that it's going to be a slow, lazy, lackadaisical day.

Days like today. Foggy. Pearl grey. Slate sky. Drizzle. Rain in the forecast. And nothing terribly pressing on my calendar for today.

Slow, lazy day.

Rosary

Have I mentioned? Lifelong Protestant though I am, I have in fact for many years said the rosary. Yes I know, I'm a Protestant tinged with Catholicism. Nonetheless I'm a lifelong Protestant, and I doubt I'll ever convert. But I do, I honestly do say the rosary. I've been doing it for 35 years, ever since my late teens. At some times less regularly, at times more regularly. But I honestly do say the rosary.

There are family reasons for this, and also (the proximate cause of my taking up the rosary) there was a good friend of mine back in college who had a big impact on me spiritually. He was a devout Roman Catholic. We used to discuss our faith, he the Catholic and I the Protestant. He gave me a rosary. He taught me how to say the rosary.

And, miraculous to say, I took him up on it. He never pressed me, never asked. But privately, on my own, I took to saying the rosary. Kept it up pretty faithfully through my mid 20s, then more sporadically for a number of years, then once again more regularly these past several years.

Immediate family know, or at least used to know, of my practice. Apart from that, as with many of my quasi-Catholic inclinations, I've been pretty clandestine and under the radar.

Don't ask me the whys and wherefores. Yes, I could get into that, in elaborate detail, but as I get older I find myself less and less inclined to air such matters.

Still, I do leave me scratching my head sometimes...

The Poverty of British Life

I've been reading a volume of letters by the British poet Philip Larkin. It always amazes me when I read stuff by mid-20th century British writers -- Larkin, C.S. Lewis, Dylan Thomas, etc. -- how they had such a shoddy standard of living. Running a little paraffin stove to help heat the bedroom -- no central heating, of course. "Better to come visit me in the summer, when I can spare enough blankets for you off my own bed." The stock Briticism, "butter is dear," and margarine hardly any more affordable. Going to great trouble to get an ordinary fountain pen repaired instead of buying a new one. A university library (this was early 1950s) with not a single typewriter in it, not even for Larkin who was the head librarian.

And these were middle class writers who were pulling in a tolerable income from full-time job plus writing. I get the impression that I enjoy a far higher standard of living than they did.

Great Britain, mid-20th century: what I always think of is bad teeth and no central heating.