colonoscopy

Well - once more - here we go. I have my annual colonoscopy this Thursday at 10 a.m.

I already have butterflies thinking about it. I think this will be my fifth colonoscopy. Since I am absolutely terrified of hospitals, even if all they were going to do was clip my toenails - this puts me into a very bad mood for the next few days.

The procedure itself isn't that bad - it's just a bad phobia that I've had all my life and there's no way around it.

When I was ten years old, I stepped on a rusty nail - got a tetanus shot - walked to the elevator and passed out cold. So it goes back a long way.

I'm lucky that I have some valium to take before I get there - but I doubt if it will help much. Oh well - got to do it.

The procedure itself isn't all that bad - though last time the nurse couldn't quite find a vein and was hunting around a long time before I started to go under. And as anyone who's had this done knows - it's the night before with the phospho soda cleaning which keeps you going all night that really is awful. I'm going with my sister who will get a cab for us afterwards (thank God for family).

Because I have crohns - there will be lots of biopsies which makes the procedure longer. Then there's the waiting for a couple of days to see if any precancerous polyps are found. The whole thing freaks me out.

I might bring my hexar like I did last time. It seems to give me a sense of control over the situation. My doctor does his best to calm me down - but I don't know - if you've ever had a bad phobia, there's just no really good way to get over it.

I don't have any other phobias that go to this level. When we were up in Rhinebeck, we came to an aerodome place where you could go up in a two seater bi-plane and I was going to go but the place wasn't open for business yet. In other words, a lot of things that scare people have no effect on me - but just the smell of hospital disinfectent gives me the heebie jeebies.

I sometimes wish that my brain was like a cats - that I didn't really know what was coming or what exactly to expect. It seems that they live in the present better than I do. I'm forced to walk through life with baggage - and with images from the future which may or may not happen.

Then again - without this ability to flip back and forth through time - to imagine what would happen if - well - no trips to the moon without that; no inventions. No sense of the future or the past - I don't think humans would have survived.