"Monday, Monday, can't trust that day"

soccerfreaks

(The Mamas and the Papas reference)

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and despite the fact I am not a religious person, I was for whatever reason amped up for the day. This is all the more curious because there were not really going to be a bunch of the usual suspects at the house. My daughter and her hub and the kids, for example, were in Minnesota, apparently paying tribute to the other grandmother so that they could be with us during MY family reunion next month in Texas. And, yes, I said MY family reunion because I am the knucklehead that insisted we do it.

It was not, therefore, as if we had some sort of wild party of loved ones and friends and guests. No, not at all. We even had to take a plate away when we miscounted, much to the chagrin, I am sure, of one of the dogs, who must certainly have anticipated he was finally getting his rightful seat at the dinner table.

No, for me it was this notion that I would finally be able to eat whatever was put before me, that I would not be leaving early in frustration, and that I would be taking my rightful place at the head of the table.

(Let me explain that last thing pretty quickly and get it out of the way: my brother in law has been sitting at the far end of the table for the past five or six years, where he can look out across all, whether at the main table or at an auxilliary table or two extending out into the living room for additional guests and the young ones. He never asked for it, but I gave it to him, in a sort of honor to him (he is a survivor of Cerebral Palsy and probably knows more about my frustrations than any other non-cancer-survivor I know). Beyond that, I knew that I would need to leave quickly once I started regurgitating or simply exploding internally with frustration (yes, we are internal-combustion engines, aren't we?).

This time, and it may have taken some of the wind out of his sails, I indicated I would be taking back my throne, if you will.

I was insisting that I would not need to leave and that I was also prepared to say grace, as hypocritical as that might sound to my religious friends who know I am agnostic.

Since we are there, let's stay there long enough for me to tell you my 'grace' was not hypocritical, but rather a paeon to those seated around me, the few, the proud, the somehow oblivous, who have put up with me for these past several years. In the middle of it, of course, this being my family and not yours, my wife decided to interject with words of wisdom that had nothing to do with what I was trying to say, so that I said some things better left within my household, and left my brother in law to say his usual and wonderful grace: "Bless this food, Jesus' sake, amen."

It is short and sweet, for sure.

But, well, that may have been the one disappointing moment of the day. Okay, no, the other disappointing moment of the day was my completely grown and otherwise intelligent son eating eggs and sausage and who knows what else, whatever it took to assuage the hangover he said he didn't have, just an hour before Easter dinner so that, lo and behold, he was not hungry and decided after the obligatory sit-down that he was leaving.

I can live with those, those disappointments. They seem to run on that side of the family, to be honest with you: yes, he takes after his mom. Although the difficulty is that he TRIES to take after me.

Sunday was good, despite the above few protestations. Those things happen.

I ate everything. Everything. That is a good thing for someone such as myself. That is a very good thing. I didn't eat it ALL, but I ate everything. And I did not leave the table. And I almost got to give a shout out to the family and friends seated around me.

And I worked my butt off all weekend in the yard, including Sunday morning, always a good thing too.

And then, Sunday night I drank my first dose of barium sulfate (vanilla, shaken, not stirred). It wasn't so bad. You can taste that metallic thing going on, but still, not so bad. My theory is that if you drink it fast enough, you can hardly taste it anyway, but since it was in a frigging jug, that wasn't going to happen: I was going to taste it. And I did. And it was not so bad. Only today (Monday, Monday) did I learn they had a tropical berry choice. I should listen more.

Still, vanilla is always a safe bet.

Why the hurry on this CT scan, I had no idea. Why GastroPod scheduled a meet with him for the very next day (tomorrow as I write this) I have no idea. Why the paper the nurse held clearly said STAT, I have no idea, or didn't at the time.

I dutifully drank my vanilla concoction. I dutifully went to bed (and dutifully, today, as I will describe a bit later perhaps, bought a certain someone some of those nose aids for snoring, albeit, they should have some in the pet section as well, it seems).

This morning I dutifully drank round two, and dutifully drove off to CATManDu, arriving, unintentionally, at the precise moment I was supposed to arrive. I found immense satisfaction in this, even if it was an accident (they could not know that) because it sort of showed them how things are supposed to be done.

Um, this was my first abdo-intestinal scan. I wore jeans.

It turns out that I have lost enough weight that if I don't wear a belt, my pants are likely to fall down. No, they are not likely to fall down, they are GOING to fall down. Briefly, I enjoy the freedom of the young folks who like to wear their pants around their lower buttocks, but then, alas, in my case, they slide to my ankles.

So when my nurse advised me to remove all things from my pockets AND my belt, I DID warn her that I might lose my pants. Regrettably, this did not excite her in the least.

Later, while on the sliding chute, when she discovered I had a zipper (Imagine that! A pair of pants with...a zipper!), she advised that I would have to drop trou. That is cool talk for leaving the trousers more or less around the knees.

My comment: "Does this mean you are happy to see me?" To her credit, she laughed. Briefly, pardon the pun.

Then the pre scan stuff and she remarked that I had 'rolly veins'. I had not heard of that. "Rolly veins?" Hmmmm. Whatever it means, it means she warned me that the first one might not take (it did, fortunately). If you have rolly veins, I guess, tell them to quit, tell them to pick up another sport.

When all was said and done, I zipped up my pants (wouldn't you like to know?) and went home, expecting that I would see GastroPod on the morrow, and all would be well. (I also put my belt back on, by the way, so that my pants would not fall off in the waiting room to an unsuspecting, non-paying clientele.)

I felt really good, felt rather care-free, especially, I think, still reveling in the Sunday stuff, and so was surprised when GastroPod called within an hour...a new record for ANY doctor!

I highly recommend not answering the phone on Monday.