My yearly scans: colonscopy, endoscopy, various ultrasounds and a trip to the dermatologist, are like my annual mini-gauntlet that must be run before the pleasant holidays. The first on that list is, of course, the least favorite, due to the day of fasting, followed by the night-long uncomfortable evening of “prep.”
That evening was last night. To make up for the lack of sleep, food, and physical comfort, I try to offer myself other pleasures in the form of reading or watching multiple episodes of a TV show (TV tends to work a better than movies because frequent bathroom breaks are somehow more conducive TV.
Last night I checked out Master of None, the Netflix series created by Aziz Ansari and loved it.
I spent some time trying to figure out the ongoing mystery why my friends keep liking our Lovers In Their Right Mind Facebook page but they don’t show up on our counter and we can’t seem to break the the 500 fans threshold. Although some Facebook support pages indicate that this is due to people’s privacy settings, this seems inaccurate in our case, and more and like a ploy to back us into a corner where we have to pay to “boost” our visibility, but before falling prey to my own cynicism I decided to call my brother and making him play with his privacy settings. It made no difference, so my cynicism is intact, but we also got a chance to chat and I found out he also has a blog, related to learning science and his current job working with education and underprivileged youth. It’s pretty groovy.
Today the “procedure” went okay, but for the fact the surgeon had to remove some tissue and fasten the wound with clips. Not to worry, he says, I just need to eat clear liquids for two days, after which I can have not-clear liquids for two more days. By no means the worst outcome (as I know from having worse outcomes) but it definitely sucked some of my joy to look forward to eating something delicious this evening and then learn that I will be liquid-fasting for four more days.
But I can’t feel too sorry for myself because over the weekend I finished reading my friend Dan’s harrowing memoir Home is Burning, wherein his dad, increasingly paralyzed by ALS, goes on a feeding tube for the last months of his life — the end of solid food — and then dies. So that’s some perspective, I guess. As long as I can avoid getting hit by a truck in the next four days, non-liquid food is almost certainly in my future.
Oh, so, so, so, so, so, so, so over the moon that all tests are clear!!!! Every time I look across the street I still think of your place as “Barrington and Paul’s Aussie House,” despite about 4 other people living in it since you left here. xx