What A Way To Start A Day

"Unhappiness comes when we feel helpless. 

Hope comes the minute we decide we are not."

~Toni Soronson

The Great Brain Cleanse

It's here! The BIG. BAD. Dreaded DAY!

My colonoscopy is scheduled for 7:30 A.M. 

I know lots of people have been through this, and I know the chance that I have cancer are slight, but I also know I have had some symptoms that can't be ignored. Hair loss... a lot of hair loss. I fainted a couple months ago. Changes to bowel movements, I won't go into details on that dear reader, you get the idea. I can't ignore what my body is telling me. Something isn't quite right. It might be something dumb, and not life changing, so the dreaded test is the way to go. I just wish it didn't involve a total stranger sticking something up my butt. I wish it didn't involve an IV stuck in my arm. And it wish it didn't involve... the BIG BAD of all BIG BADS...

 CANCER! 

I will do what I always do. I will write down what I think the whole thing will be like, and then afterward I will comeback here and write about what it was really like. It's a tool I learned when I was in a class for those who suffer from panic attacks. It's a great way to take the anxiety out of any stressful unknown issue. You can always look back through your journal and realize we humans tend to make things bigger in our imaginations, then they tend to actually be in life, and as I found out, my imagination loves to make something mildly scary or irritating, the worst thing ever!

So...

1. The IV will be the worst physical pain I have ever endured. The needle won't go in my vein, but when they finally get it to go in, it will break off in my arm.
2.  The medicine that finally begins to flow through my body will kill me, but not before causing me to say something stupid like David Duchovny has the nicest butt since Jesus and I wish I could do a colonoscopy on him one day.
3. The world will end, as my bare naked butt shines to the world. It seems North Korea couldn't take one more moment of Donald Trump and decided to help us all out by nuking the us.
4. An earthquake, a 10.0, decides to hit just as the doctor is halfway up my butt. He decided to drop the scope, and runs. away. And there I am left on a cold table, with a colonoscope sticking halfway out my butt. And no one to remove it!
5. The light bulb on the colonoscopy burns out half way through, and we have to start all over.
6. The doctor detects a strange face that looks a little like Donald Trump scrolled on the side of my bowel wall. Kinda like a hieroglyphic.
7. The doctor ruptures my colon and I bleed out.
8. I fart
9. The doctor finds tumors too big to do a biopsy.
10.  The doctor finds cancer.
11. My whole life changes forever.

 

 

The doctor finds cancer.

And my whole life changes forever!

 

I will write a new post updating my adventure on Thursday.

 

Stay Tuned!

 

Leaf Of The  Day

October 19th 2016

Mood: Scared But Okay

 

~Me :)  

 

      

 

At The Margins Of Everything

"Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone's horizon sweeps someone else's. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much."

~Gregory Maguire

Out Of Oz

It's been one hell of a week... hasn't it? There is so much swirling around in my head right now, it's all beginning to blend together! My colonoscopy is less than a week away now. In fact it's only 5 days away, and I can admit it, I am getting scared! There is a big part of me that just wants to run, and there is another part of me that says, "cowboy up, and get it done!" I guess, when it's all said and done, I will probably decide to grow through with the test and just get it over with! It's just all very bad timing... as if there is any good timing for getting a colonoscopy! I am pretty sure, NO ONE looks forward to that!

Anyway, I am going to do lots and lots of photography the next few days, and distract myself from the doom. And it's not like there won't be any politics in the mean time to keep me occupy my attention. Trump is on the slow speed chase to political oblivion as I type this! Is it possible that something even worse is on the horizon? Something worse than, at last count, 11 women coming forward to tell their personal tales of being sexually assaulted by Trump? Could be! But what could it be? I don't even want to speculate! It seems like every day for the last year or so, he has managed to top himself with his despicable, deplorable, boorish behavior!

I guess we will see it when it gets here.

Right?

Until then... I am off to find some beauty. Some art. Something, anything that better fills my mind and imagination! Like that little bird, admiring that flower. I could learn a lot from him I think!

Wish me luck!

Leaf Of The Day

October 15, 2016

Mood: Happy :)

~Me :) 

 

Butt... Butt...

"A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us."

~ Pema Chodron

The Places That Scare You

Okay, so, a couple of posts back, I explained that I had some news that I would be sharing with you but I first needed to come to terms with it before I made it an official part of this diary of me. I am ready now. Here is the thing. I haven't been feeling very good. I was sick a couple times, earlier this year, with a bout of food poisoning, and a urinary tract infection. Both carry similar symptoms. Nausea, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, both are nasty things to deal with, and because I also carry Fibromyalgia everywhere I go, every single day of my life, I am already prepared to keep colds, flu and the occasional bout of food poisoning and UTS's a little longer than most folks do. But when I did recover from those things, I found I was still really tired and I just didn't feel right. I put it all down to the stress of this past year, and believe me it was stressful, but the doctor wanted to know more, so in that I am in my 50's now, it was more important than ever that I got a full workup of tests including my annual FIT test. 

The tests showed a higher than usual white blood count, and that the FIT test came back positive for hidden blood in my feces. Terrific. The doctor has ordered a colonoscopy to see if it's colon cancer. Now, before you panic, the odds are that there is only a 5% chance it will turn out to be anything. When the colonoscopy is done, they will be able to see if there are any cancerous or precancerous polyps in my colon and remove them for biopsy. If there are some that are over a certain size, then that will require surgery. Sigh. The odds are in my favor, but with the way I have been feeling I am needless to say, unnerved. Actually, I am no unnerved so much as SCARED. I am scaredy-scared! I am scared of cancer. I am scared of the colonoscopy. I am scared of the IV needle they will be putting in my arm to do the test. I am scared.

SCARED. SCARED. SCARED.

I found all this out over a month ago. Since then I have grieved it. I have bargained. Denied. Gotten REALLY PISSED OFF. CRIED REALLY LOUD when the house was empty. And finally, made the appointment for the colonoscopy. So, with the grieving of my circumstance behind me (pun intended) I am now turning to humor, which has already seen me though so much in life, to help me though yet another stupid ASS situation I find myself in. I know this might be nothing, but I fainted one day, so that tells me it might BE something this time, but what can I do? I will just have to put my big girl panties on and bend over!

Right?

Okay, right. In an effort to get on with it... the being a big girl part...I was searching through self help books on Amazon.com a couple weeks ago, and came across this book, about one man's journey. It's a short story about the prep night before the dreaded colonoscopy. It's honest. It's funny. And most important it's very human. I enjoyed reading about his adventure, and I will be thinking about it when my turn comes next month. I have also been lucky enough to have gotten advice from Twitter pals who have had this test done, and live to tell the tale. They have all been very kind about sharing their experiences with me! I am lucky. And I am not alone. That's important to know at times like this, human stuff happens to humans other than yourself.

My advice to myself right now is...

COWBOY UP GIRLFRIEND

YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH WORSE THAN THIS!

And I have... I really have. And I am still standing, at least I am  when I am not fainting.

So, the test happens on October 19th. I will be sharing the journey because the month of October is our vacation month. It's our favorite month! We have our anniversary, and it's autumn, and Halloween happens, so is there any better time you can think of have a colonoscopy done? So, stay tuned. There is a lot coming in the future, including my Leaf Of The Day project for 2016! I am not going to dwell on the colonoscopy, it's only one part of what I hope will be a very busy, very life filled month. October is too beautiful to ignore!

LOL. 

I am bending over to stare cancer in the eye!

Mood: Concerned But Okay

~Me :)