Colonoscopy? I'll Take Two...

Just kidding! One was enough.

So here's the thing. As one ages, ones body ceases to function as it did before. Things that once were easy and regular become painful and...not so regular. Sometimes this happens when one has borne many children, sometimes it's an obstruction. There are many reasons why, but it's a good idea (for the sake of peace of mind) to be able to cross some of those possibilities off the list.

This is my story. I'll spare you the details, and just say that my plumbing isn't working like it should. So I went to a professional. As I had exhausted all over the counter remedies, we skipped to the end and scheduled a colonoscopy.

Prepping for this procedure takes at least twenty four hours. We begin by eating only jello, popsicles (without pulp), broth, and coffee or tea (which I don't drink) and soda. This may sound fun to begin with, but there's only so much blue jello a person can take.

Around noon we take a Dulcolax. If you don't know what that does go Google it. Or ask a parent. Then around six we begin drinking a large jug of a juice called "Golytly" (Ha! That's funny because it's not pleasant at all). We can stop drinking the juice once everything comes out clear. Everything.

The next morning, we head to the hospital where we put on a paper gown, and awesome socks with grabby junk on the bottom so we won't slip and crack our skulls. A disposable heart monitor is taped to our finger, and a disposable hose is fed into our gown to keep us warm. We blow up like the Staypuffed marshmallow man. We find this quite funny. We understand the need for disposable everything, but the hose confuses us because it never touches us. We ask the nurse why and she tells us it's to "cut down on the cooties". We find this comical as well.

We have an I.V. put in our arm where we see we are now sporting a large bruise because apparently we "bruise easily." We remove all of our jewelry and hand it over to our spouse and then we are wheeled into the procedure room. A tube is placed in our nose to help us breathe because that tends to stop when placed under anesthesia. We think the tube smells gross.

We exchange witty banter with the staff until a white, cream looking substance is pushed into our I.V. We see spots and have enough time to exclaim "wow!" before our spouse is waking us up, and asking us nonsensical questions. We ask him when he started speaking French, and he looks at us strangely. We are told by the nurse that we "shouldn't drive or make any legal decisions for the next twenty four hours." This is funny also so we laugh.

We change back into our street clothes then are wheelchaired to the door where our spouse brings the van. We hit Chick-Fil-A on the way home for our first meal in thirty six hours then head home and sleep the medication off.

Congratulations! You have survived your first colonoscopy. And because you have opened that door, even if you are perfectly healthy, you now get to have it done every five years for the rest of your life. You're welcome.

How I Love/ Hate Technology...

For the past couple of months, Mr. D has been dancing around like a nervous puppy in anticipation of our phone upgrades. I, on the other hand, am not so excited. Cell phones and I have this love/hate thing that we just can't get past.

It happens every time. We meet in a crowded store. I cautiously cross the room to get know him better. Promises are made, so many, many promises of how my life will be better, fuller should I let him in. I'm always hesitant, I've been hurt before, but he's so attractive. Pretty things don't ever lie, do they? My fears, while never gone, settle down and I feel like, maybe this time, it will be different.

And for a while it is. Promises made are kept, and I feel more and more at ease. I trust more, so I give more until...

My trust is repaid with a slap to the face. Everything I entrusted to him is gone. He loses everything I gave him, and hides the rest. He lies and tells me he is unable to perform the tasks he had accomplished just weeks, even days before. We go back for help to see if we can repair what we've lost, but all we can do is start over. It's more painful than I can bear. Everything we had is gone. I have to rebuild again, and I decide it just isn't worth it.

I seek comfort in other places, keep dates in other calendars, make notes where he can't get to them, hide contacts where he can never find them. There's no music for us either. We only interact when it's absolutely necessary, and only with contempt. We sleep in different rooms. Eventually, we become comfortable in our dysfunction, we feel we can be happy in spite of our troubles.

Until the day of upgrade.

D.P.'s (Newest) Near-Death Experience..

My brakes were squeaking. They tend to do that. Apparently, I am rough on my brakes. Mr. D. hasn't had to buy brake pads for almost five years because of some warranty. So when they start to squeak he just takes the old pads off and trades them for new ones. He was "fixin to" change them soon.

Apparently that was also a problem.

I was driving my squeaky wheeled self around town a few weeks ago when, after dropping the kids off at P.E.) I decided to go to my happy place, Bahama Bucks. Best. Snowcones. Ever.

Anyway, as I pulled into the turn lane I heard a loud "pop" and my brake pedal went all the way to the floor. And I was still moving. Realizing I was about to sail into traffic, I went ahead and punched the gas making it into the parking lot before the next wave of cars came by.

I nursed myself to a stop amid the painful groans of metal on metal. I still shudder at the memory of that sound, the sound of money being torn from our hands. I whipped out my handy dandy cell phone and Googled a mechanics shop. Thankfully there was a shop just around the corner about half a mile down.

So I carefully left the parking lot (goodbye Bahama Bucks) and practically crawled down the road to my destination. I pulled into the lot amidst another metal protest from my busted brakes. As I handed the keys over I could have sworn I saw dollar signs pop out of the guys eyes.

Sure enough, he comes out forty minutes later, giddy with excitement as he led me back to the shop to show me all of the things that needed to be replaced.

I'm not super educated in mechanical jargon, but I know enough to understand the difference between "need" and "greed". Even still this adventure was going to cost us an arm and a leg. Which I guess I don't mind because the van is paid off, and I only need one arm.

I was promised my van would be repaired by the evening, so after I made sure my kids had a way home, I embarked on the three mile walk back to the house. Now, let me just stop all of the gasps of protest right now. I have many friends who love my guts, and I know that anyone of them would have dropped whatever they were doing to come and get me, but I needed that walk. I needed to contemplate my life, the vastness of the universe, and the depth of my belly button. Also, my aft end is growing wider so I needed the exercise.

It was a fun walk, except for the rig that flew past and salted me with enough gravel to remove the top layer of my epidermis. That wasn't very nice.

I made it home in one piece, and my van was ready by the evening, as promised. Hopefully, we won't have to replace anything else for a while. Since we've already repaired the A.C., and replaced the battery.

Is that naïve?