I have to be honest, the last couple of days have had some big ups and downs.  I am thrilled at the response we’ve gotten from our field trip to the Dollar Tree…It’s kept me going when I haven’t felt the best.  And speaking of that, I probably shouldn’t share things like this, but I’ve decided I just don’t care.

If you’ve never had a colonoscopy, it takes a full day of eating nothing, but clear liquids, then in the evening you drink 16 oz. of the most horrible “prep” drink known to man, then follow it with 32 oz of water.  The water was the saving grace of that portion of the experience.  Then this morning, I had to do it all over again, only this time, every sip of the “prep” drink made me sick, and I mean sick.  I couldn’t keep it down.  So for every one sip of “prep,” I had five big swallows of water…otherwise, it wasn’t going to happen.  I even called the hospital and asked if I had to drink all of it, as I didn’t think I could do it.  In the end, I drank almost all of it, enough to finish the real prep (and I’m sure you know what that was.)

So we got to the hospital, and they put me in a room that had a television that changed it’s own channel every three to five minutes.  And you couldn’t choose a channel number, or use the down button for channels, you could only go forward.  So if you wanted to go back to the channel it just left, you had to go through roughly sixty channels to get there.  And of course you were only there for three to five minutes until it did it again.  It was a minor annoyance, one I could definitely live with.  Then came the IV…the nurse had a difficult time finding a vein that she liked, so put a tourniquet on both arms to see which hand she liked best.  There will be bruises from the tourniquets, as she wasn’t shy about how tight she wanted them….and even that wasn’t bad.

We were ready and waiting, and the time for my appointment came and went.  Then the nurse came in to tell me that their water had an issue, and was no longer clean…Didn’t sound like something that was healthy or viable, but they were going to work on it and get back to me.  I knew immediately that there was no way I was getting any procedure done today, and had already told Rich there was no possibility of me doing the “prep” again…Even in ten years, I told him, I would definitely remember, and not want to do it again.  The nurse gave me options…I could come back tomorrow and have it done, which meant no eating or drinking (or pain medication) for another 24 hours.  That’s out of the question…I haven’t eaten in a day and a half, and they wanted to make it almost three—no thanks…They said I could re-schedule and re “prep”…that’s no even a possibility.  So I told her I wasn’t rescheduling and I wasn’t going to stay for toast, and we left…I got home and drank Carnation Instant Breakfast and went to bed…crying of course, because of all I’d done to “prep” for the day, and never actually having anything done.

I know I should have the procedure done, but it’s just not in me to “reprep”…  I would love to say that I don’t let anything bother me, but this did.  It was too much, and I’m not going to put myself through it again.  And Rich is all right with it…

I think the part I want to stress is that I was not able to take any pain medication and without it, I struggle to function.  People in the medical community only see their specialty, which today, was not arthritis…So when they gave me a warm blanket and I put it under my lower back, the nurse came back and took it from under my back, and put it over me…I think I know where I want the blanket…So I explained I wanted it there for lower back pain, and she went to get another blanket….why didn’t she just ask me why I had the blanket behind me in the first place?  It was a long two days and I don’t often like to share my “real” life, but this has been something I needed to say.

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