Category: medical

Cool to start, warmer later, and mostly sunny. Today and yesterday. Lovely Fall weather, finally.

Spent all day yesterday getting my guts poked and prodded, videoed and violated…

So today I’ve got stuff to do. And I need to find time to vote. The important race is city of Houston Mayor, but there are proposals to vote on too.

Hopefully my guts will rearrange themselves and reacquaint themselves with food on their own. So far, there has been a lot of rumbling and “air” movement. At least I can eat normally.

I’m grumbling, but it is a miracle of the modern age to have the medical resources I’ve used in the last month available to me. I like civilization, western civilization, modern technological civilization. I like a capitalist system that causes GE to make as many CT scanners as they can, so that they are common as can be (in America you can get a CT scan for your pet they are so common). Ditto for whole surgical centers devoted to looking inside you one way or another. The only delays in my care were due to sequencing of appointments with specialists, and my preferences to spread things out a bit. I was offered appointments within a week of first identifying the need, sometimes less than a week, and usually with the exact doctor my GP wanted (although one time was with another doctor in the same practice.)

I have had a massive amount of gear and research and training available to me, with a truly unimaginable amount of the same waiting to act and treat any issues found. Houston is home to an astonishing amount of medical expertise and facilities. It is not something that can be easily replaced once it is gone. There are fools who want to burn it all down… and seem unstoppable. I hope they are not. I hope those far above my pay grade have a plan to fight back, to reclaim and rebuild. I’m not sanguine about it though.

Take care of yourself while you can. Rice doubling in price is something you can deal with. No more access to diagnostic labs, and CT scans, and nuclear medicine means stuff that could have been dealt with will have to be endured.

So many things are outside of our control, and outside of our reasonable response or responsibility. Yoda had it right, “Save you what can.” Do what you can to help save the rest. There are still Romans in Rome, and most of us will make it through whatever comes next. And who knows? A golden age may result.

In the mean time, stack.

nick

Cool and clear again, although we had some threatening clouds in the afternoon yesterday. It was well into the 80s and sweaty to be working outside. Probably more of that today.

But I won’t be working outside. I’ll be inside trying mightily to keep my insides inside me… as the evil clean out stuff does its job cleaning me out in preparation for an up close and personal inspection.

It’s something we all must endure as we get older, and it’s truly a modern miracle that we even have something like this available to us. I’m sure countless lives have been saved, or prolonged, and the quality of life improved for many. Still doesn’t make it enjoyable.

I did get a couple of things done yesterday before drinking the devil’s spit cup. Got some more of the Halloween decor put away. Got a couple more things sorted for auction or BOL. And then spent hours sitting. Gah.

I’ve got more of that to do today. 6am, second dose. Followed by lots of fluid. Eventually I’ll head to the facility. General anesthetic and cameras inserted from both ends, some indignities perpetrated against me, and I should be home for dinner…

There is always that slight risk though. It’s been on my mind. No way through but through at this point. I’m convinced of the necessity to rule out any serious issues, especially when things in the world are so unstable and no one knows what the future will hold. Hopefully, after some short period of time, I’ll know what my personal future doesn’t hold. That’s the goal anyway.

Meanwhile, fix what you can. And stack.

nick

Cool and clear, maybe someone in Houston gets some rain… warm later. It got into the 80s yesterday. Had to turn the house AC back on. Fall can be crazy with needing heat overnight, and AC during the day.

I did my pickup, and while I was on that side of town, hit a couple of estate sales. One was great, I spent over an hour in the garage picking tools and supplies. The other was mostly a bust, but I did grab a klein wire stripper and a pair of Channelok pliers for $2 each. The only other thing in the whole house I might have been interested in was an original Atari 2600 with accessories and games, and an enclosure with a dust cover. I’d never seen the enclosure before but it turned out they aren’t particularly rare or valuable. Sellers were unorganized, distracted, and prices were at retail… They kept saying they’d be open again next weekend. Not gonna be getting much return business would be my guess.

If you’ve got some special stuff and you want it to bring the money it’s worth or go to a good home, make the plans now. I’m a big fan of estate sale companies but they vary wildly in knowledge, skill, and focus. Some are predatory. No one loves your stuff like you do.

Today I’ll be stuck at home, close to the smallest room. I’m starting the prep for my colonoscopy on Monday. I’m led to believe it’s very unpleasant and I won’t want to be too far from the facilities. We’ll see if I can get anything done around the house. Fortunately I’m a prepper, and we didn’t use the last roll of TP in the house last night, just the last roll before opening a new bale. There was a moment though, where I doubted my memory, and I was worried about sending my wife out for TP… which would have been bad on so many levels. But the garage DID have another bale waiting for use…

Whew.

I’m working on getting all the medical stuff up to date and out of the way. Venezuela levels of collapse could make it very difficult to get care if you found out you needed it. If I can get around to it, you can too.

Get the niggling little thing checked out. And stack. Meds too.

nick