‘Feeling all cuddly after my colonoscopy’
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I almost had to live forever in Colombia because of a Covid test gone awry. (See “I Was Positive I Was Negative” for the gory details.) And then I wrote about the time I got mugged on Thanksgiving. (Check out “Your Turkey or Your Life” for some scary stuff.)
Scary: how quickly you have to switch from the turkey napkins to the reindeer ones
I guess I’m on a roll here spinning strands of woe into the gold of glee, because today I had a colonoscopy. And, trust me, the whole experience has been so all-consuming of both body and mind that I can’t think of anything else to entertain you with.
Oh yes (speaking of being on a roll), I did think about riffing on a piece I saw in The New York Times about how young girls in Korea have started wearing hair rollers in public. The piece claims that they are “saving” their best groomed selves for the people they care about. Well. I’m here to tell you that this is not the reason. At least when I was a teen, we traipsed around all day in rollers to signal that we had a date that night.
Teen me not wearing rollers (because I was at school) but I did sometimes twine my locks around a giant tin can — and even, on occasion, ironed my hair
But yesterday I had to stop eating food and start drinking disgusting slimy sludgy concoctions designed to “flush my system” and produce a “nice clean colon.” I’m here to tell you that the stopping of the eating is a piece of (ugh!) cake compared to the flushing of the system.
I am sure that you are breathing great big sighs of relief at this point that I am sharing only verbal details — and not too many of them at that. Good ole Katie Couric famously had her colonoscopy done on live TV. It was on The Today Show, and no I am not providing a link. Oh, okay. Here it is, but I am not going to watch it.
It’s been hard not to think of anything else, even hair rollers. But today I had The Actual Procedure and I’m glad to report that my colon is A-OK. Incidentally, I’ve had to go through a whole raft of Fun Medical Procedures recently because, for the past several years, I have not had a physical exam. Oh, I’ve gone to doctors for this or for that, but not for the whole shebang. Turns out you find out all kinds of lovely things you need at a physical exam — tetanus shots, shingles shots, many many shots. Oh, and in my case, that colonoscopy. Oh, joy.
How I’ve felt the last few weeks — and not because of my birthday (!)
Oh, one more thing. Today was also the anniversary of the loss of the wonderful “imaginary kitty”, Wombat. The silver lining in that cloud is that my Favorite Child gave me a picture book about her. And my Favorite Sister gave me a pillow that looks like her (and is even soft like her.) And once I got home, there they were: perfect post-colonoscopy companions to cuddle up with.
New York City. November 2021
