Colonoscopy (I hate poop and all things related to poop)

Maybe everyone hates poop, I don't know.
But I really, really hate poop.
I always attribute it to my OCD--it is definitely one of my triggers.

I'm an equal opportunity poop-hater.
I hate my poop, and I hate your poop.

When the kids were in diapers, I could handle changing them and cleaning up poop UNLESS it was poop in the bath.
Oh my god--call hazmat.
Nothing set me off like that.
My hands would bleed from the bleach and the cleaning I did of the bathroom after that.

If I have to plunge the toilet and a sprinkle of toilet water gets on my sock, I have to change the sock because I will be able to feel that place on the sock for the entire day, even when it is dry.

My dislike of poop has a long history.

My dad had ulcerative colitis for over 20 years.
He started with it in his forties and eventually had his colon removed in his sixties.
(He has been much happier since then. I wouldn't have waited nearly as long to take that step.)

The house we lived in when I was a kid had one bathroom, which means that whether we liked it or not, we all were very much aware of my dad's condition.
You couldn't take a bath or a shower without him needing to use the toilet.

I spent years of my young adult life worrying that I would develop ulcerative colitis.
What I did have was irritable bowel syndrome, which was its own kind of literal pain in the butt.

Once I went on Lexapro, the IBS went away.

Fast forward to now.

I'm soon to have my first colonoscopy, and I am pissed about it.

You would think that someone would have discovered a better, less invasive, less time-consuming way to check the colon.
I'm pissed because I hate medical procedures in general.
I'm pissed because I hate not being able to eat for an entire day and a half.
I'm pissed because it is bad enough having to poop as part of life, but taking concoctions to make yourself poop is disgusting.

But I'm doing this because the American Cancer Society has now changed its recommendation that instead of age 50, people should have their first colonoscopies at age 45.

I'll be 45 in September, and I'd rather get this shit (literal and figurative) done now before school begins.

Plus, I think age-related hormones are making my bowel habits change, and I just want to ensure it is hormones and not anything more serious.
Like I need more reasons to hate perimenopause.

Plus, plus, the gal I subbed for regularly buried her 49-year-old husband in May. His cancer started in his colon and spread to his lungs and liver.

Another friend of mine is dating a guy who is 50 and has been diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer.

Because I'll be hangry and moody, I've told D to just drop me off and come back for me.

I'm liable to say embarrassing things to nurses and doctors because, although I'm generally an easy-going individual, when you make me fast AND make me poop AND then want to jam a tube in my rear-end, I'm not a nice person.

All things related to poop are a dignity-suck, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm making them put a note in my chart that I will go ballistic if the doctor even thinks about sending me home with photos of my colon (which is what he handed me a year ago when D had his colonoscopy).

Who the f*ck wants a picture of their colon?

The summer I just gave up

Ok, I guess I haven't totally given up, but I've mostly given up.

I am not trying to make my kids' brains bigger, better, more culturally awesome this summer.

I'm done trying to build the Six Million Dollar Kids.

I am mostly letting them do what they want. In the same way that when I was young, I watched endless episodes of television shows and did a whole bunch of nothing.

I don't remember what those shows were. I remember I watched way too much Remington Steele during summer breaks in college.

By the time August rolled around, I was kinda ready for some routine and structure because my summer wasn't completely full and structured.

June was busy. A week in Colorado, followed by a week at Girl Scout camp, followed by a week of VBS.

That right there is a huge amount of "educational and personal development" material.

Experiencing another state.
Going horseback riding.
Learning about animals that live in RMNP.
Learning about the Continental Divide.
Fishing at camp.
Looking through huge telescopes at the moon since it was a space theme at camp.
Building and launching rockets.
Learning Bible stories.

July has been a "recover from June" month.

When I think about what I did during summers as a kid, I know my mother didn't take me to museums or theatrical performances or make me do worksheets.
If she did, I don't remember it (so obviously it had a tremendous impact).
If she did, she didn't do it every summer with regular frequency.

I left the house to go to a friend's place and returned 8 hours later.
My mother had no clue what I was doing or with whom.

And somehow, I managed to get a master's degree.

Now in the interest of complete truth, my kids are doing something educational.
N is working on a packet from her high school in which she has to read and write and do some math.
And the boys are having to do a page per day in their cursive writing workbooks and read before bed.
But that is it.

In upper-middle-class white world, I am failing miserably.
In the rest of the world, I'm doing a stellar job.
I'll split the difference and assume I'm doing ok.

How my music is like my vacations

Life is too short to go to the same places over and over again on vacation. 

Even when I have moments of thinking it would be nice (and less stressful) to return to the same vacation spot every few years, I just can't do it. 

It doesn't feel right.

That same feeling describes my musical taste.

I do not listen to any music now that I listened to when I was 35, and certainly not when I was 25, and absolutely not what I listened to at 15.

Sure, I'll have an occasion when I listen to a particular song or maybe even a whole album, but I listen once and then I move along to discovering new things. 

(There were some lost years when all I listened to were Disney soundtracks and The Wiggles because of kids.)

If I had to create a timeline of my lifetime musical interests by musical artist/band in order, it might look like this:

Andy Gibb

Rick Springfield

Duran Duran

--

--

--(ok, this particular phase lasted a LONG time)

Bon Jovi / Guns & Roses / various hair bands

Al B Sure / New Edition / Public Enemy / Big Daddy Kane / various other rappers

Pearl Jam / Tori Amos / Liz Phair / PJ Harvey

Jeff Buckley

--

--

--(this phase lasted a long time, too)

David Gray
The Lost Years (Disney, Wiggles, Doodlebops, Dora the Explorer)
_
_
_
The Flaming Lips
The Black Keys
Bruno Mars
Fitz and the Tantrums

At the present time, I'm listening to Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco.

I remember as a kid loving Duran Duran; it was a complete obsession. And they never came to my city. Later, when I was considerably older, they did come to my city, and the idea that I would pay money to see them in concert by that time was laughable.

Even though I loved Pearl Jam in college and saw them in concert in college, I would not pay to see them now. That ship has sailed.

This summer, I will finally get to see The Flaming Lips in concert. That is a bucket list item.
The one performer I never got to see is Jeff Buckley, which is a shame.

There are some artists I've seen a couple times, but after two concerts, I'm sorta done.

Sometimes I wonder what I will listen to when I'm in my 70s or 80s.
Will I be listening to entirely new things, or will I revert to the "oldies?"

If the first 45 years of my life are any indication, I'll be finding new musicians and bands and, perhaps, asking my grandkids if Nana can go with them to see their favorite bands in concert.

Weight gain--the good, the bad, and the anxiety

Last week, when I went for my annual girlie appointment, I had gained 7 lbs from the previous year's visit.

To say that this fact is now taking up valuable real estate in my brain is an understatement.
I am, more or less, obsessing.

I'm not overweight, which many people would say precludes me from being able to fret about this 7 lb gain.

Those people, if they are reading this post, should probably stop reading now.
Because I am fretting about this 7 lbs.

I weigh 148 lbs.
My BMI is 23.2.
Totally "healthy."
Totally normal weight.

My doctor told me not to worry about it.
But I am worried about it.

Because I cannot gain 7 lbs every year.
I am this close to 45-years-old.

And I have been slacking off on my health.

In one sense, that is the good part. That I have allowed myself to not worry about what I'm eating or how much I'm exercising.
That is also the bad part.
And now, I'm in the anxiety part.

I began fretting over my weight, in one form or another, in 2003, when I was pregnant with N and developed gestational diabetes. When I was put on a super strict diet and lost 7 lbs during my pregnancy. When I began walking 45 minutes every single day on the treadmill.

The day I delivered N, I weight 141 lbs.
The day I came home from the hospital, I weighed 120 lbs.
Between breastfeeding and walking nonstop on the treadmill, I dropped even more weight.
Six months later, I weighed 112 lbs.
When I began not eating as a result of depression, being 112 lbs was not a good thing.

My therapist at the time (prior to medication) asked me if I had an eating disorder, and I guess in some sense I did.
When you are obsessive, you find things to obsess about.

Gradually, with medication and therapy, my weight increased.
Two healthy-weight pregnancies followed.

After M was born, my mid-section bothered me, so I began working out regularly.
My mid-section dropped to 29 inches.
Over the years, it has increased to 33 inches.
Partly, this is due to working more and not having the energy to want to work out.
Plus, I began to snack more and have an occasional adult beverage more than just one night a week.
(When you drink good full-calorie beer, having an extra 1 or 2 a week can make a difference.)
I'm also not lifting 25 lb kids all day long, as I once was.

So I am refocusing on my health, which I hope will result in the loss of the 7 lbs.
Perhaps not all 7, but maybe 5?

I'm having to fight the urge to buy a scale (which I haven't owned in years).
Because I'm already obsessing; I don't need to buy tools for my home that will help me obsess more and better.

I'm having to tell myself that cutting out chips and after dinner snacks and walking every day and increasing my strength training will probably be "good enough."

I wish I could burn calories by obsessing. 

Doing VBS in a week of incivility, hostility, hatred (Badass Jesus)

Last week was a hard week for me to do VBS at church.

We were in year two of a program about feeding the hungry, and I was in the storytime group.

Our pastor pretended to be so sleepy from having been up half the night caring for unexpected visitors whom he and his wife had to feed....because that is what you did when someone came to your door.
You washed their feet and fed them.
To do otherwise was to violate norms and be considered uncivil and inhospitable.

As you can imagine, my brain was pummelled by the cacophony of "love thy neighbor" and the Muslim ban, the ICE detention centers that separate children, the restaurants who pick and choose who they serve.

I am not a Bible thumper by any stretch of the imagination, but I love me some badass Jesus.

Badass Jesus ate lunch with Zaccheus, a tax collector who may or may not have gouged people.
Badass Jesus told Martha, who was all concerned about "looking like a proper hostess" to chill her ass out and visit with him. (Which makes me feel MUCH better about my meh hostess skills when book club friends come every summer.)

Badass Jesus politely (and sometimes not politely) gave the middle finger to "propriety" and to hypocrisy.

I suspect that Jesus, who himself was an infant refugee, would have his sandals down in Texas protesting and flipping tables and not having any part of children being separated from their parents.

I suspect Badass Jesus would be giving hell to the rich white folks who claim to be Christian and yet seem to be perfectly ok with denigrating anyone who is brown-skinned or poor.

I admit, though, that I'm not sure what Badass Jesus would say about the restaurant refusing to serve Sarah Sanders.

I really have mixed feelings about this one, as does apparently everyone.
Maybe Badass Jesus would too?

I follow Reason magazine, which is libertarian, and they posted opinions by two of their writers that had diametrically opposed feelings about the actions of the Red Hen owner.

My own feeling is that I would have served her, taken pictures of my staff serving her, giving her a really excellent evening and then posted all over social media that "WE DO NOT AGREE WITH ANY WORD THAT COMES OUT OF HER MOUTH (she is a bonafide liar), but we serve even those we disagree with."

I get not wanting to serve her, but I would choose differently.
Because if we're going to not serve people based on being liars, where do we draw the line?
Cause I've lied.

Being kind, being compassionate does not have to mean allowing people to run roughshod over you, which is often the response when anyone questions the treatment of refugees or immigrants at US borders.

It's like you can't be a kind person AND have boundaries.

"Do you want open borders where anyone can just waltz right on in?"
"Will you let people just walk right into your house without your permission?

Well, of course not.

I am procedure-oriented, not rule-oriented, and the current procedure for seeking asylum in the US states that you have to be PHYSICALLY PRESENT IN THE US, which means the procedure is to cross the border and step onto US soil and state you are seeking asylum.

So don't blame immigrants or refugees because this is the procedure.
Desperate people take desperate measures.
If I was running from persecution or violence or abject poverty, I may not care about breaking a law either.

Or if you insist on blaming them, then at least be sure to spread the blame around sufficiently.

Maybe blame politicians who don't adequately fund immigration courts, meaning there are too few judges to manage the proceedings, which means it takes YEARS for asylum cases to be decided?

Maybe blame the Americans who illegally smuggle/sell guns to cartels in Mexico, thereby worsening the violence from which people want to escape?

As with virtually everything under the sun, if you don't think it's complicated, you're not paying attention.

The sermon today at church was about how Jesus often followed the "spirit" of the law and maybe not so much the exact law.

How many people who lambast immigrants for crossing the border illegally (and therefore deserve whatever horrible things happen to them as a result, including the forced separation from their children) break the law by speeding?
Or by violating intellectual property rights by showing a film to a large group of people?
Or by not giving attribution every time they download a photo off the Internet that they then use on a flier to advertise their business?
Or drive while using a cell phone?
Or don't wear their seatbelt?
Or drink while underage?
Or sharing medication?
Or failing to update your driver's license when you move?
Or not registering their pet?

Or any of the other laws regular citizens break all the time.

I'm smart enough to know that I know virtually nothing about immigration law.
I'm also smart enough to know that our country is going to pay a heavy price for separating kids from their parents, whether it is through legal action or through the animus that will pervade these kids and, perhaps, make them do harm to Americans down the road.