(no subject)

[the_rck]

My sister called yesterday. Her surgery is scheduled for the 23rd. She seems pretty calm about it, more annoyed about having to do colon prep again so soon than about anything else. She’s annoyed with her oncologists, too, because none of them consider it important that she had cancer start in at least four different places in her breasts (each with different hormone profiles, so it’s not a matter of the same one popping up in different places) because it was all DCIS rather than invasive. DCIS becomes invasive eventually, and having it start more than once seems as if it’s something that would make it starting a fifth time more likely. My sister’s gynecologist is worried about that, and that’s part of why she pushed my sister to do the hysterectomy. There are other good reasons for it, but that one looms fairly large.

I got really down last night. I just wanted to curl up and have the world go away. I rather expect to have the same problem tonight. I can’t tell how much is stress and how much is being off my multivitamin and generally eating poorly. Both are likely factors.

We’re trying to figure out things that Scott and Cordelia can eat over the weekend that won’t have strong odors to make me hungrier than I would be otherwise. I’m not sure there’s a real way around it, however. Scott grilling something might help because I wouldn’t be out there to smell stuff cooking.

Cordelia tells me that changing for gym is optional at her school. Showering after gym is also not a thing because there’s only a single shower head in the girls’ locker room (we don’t know about the boys’ locker room, but I’d be surprised if it’s different). I really can’t figure out what the point is of a single shower head in a locker room. Maybe each kid is supposed to get three seconds? Of course, I’d rather that Cordelia’s experience of locker rooms be seriously limited because they’re generally awful places, especially during the middle school years and for girls. There’s a lot of body shaming and forced conformity involved.

I’m also trying to figure out what to do with myself Sunday night. I’ll be drinking clean out solution between 5:00 and 7:00 that evening and then need to be up for more of it at 3:00 in the morning (five hours before the procedure). It might make sense to take my thyroid medication at 2:00 (My primary care doctor thinks taking it in the middle of the final clean out will be fine. I’m not convinced), and if I do, I won’t be able to go back to sleep between then and 3:00. I’m not sure if it makes sense to go to bed at all. I certainly can’t do it earlier than 11:00, not safely, and that would mean three hours of sleep if I fall asleep immediately.

Scott wants me to read books because that is quiet and won’t wake him or Cordelia. I’m not sure I’ll have the brain to do that. Maybe TV and/or DVDs with the sound completely off? I don’t know. Of the two DVDs I’m getting from the library this weekend, one is old enough not to have captioning, and the other is mainly fun for the music, so I don’t think I’ll want to watch either with the sound off. I guess I’ll have to hope that Netflix and Hulu are working right then and that I can find things I’m interested in watching that aren’t mentally taxing.

Comments

[kyrielle]

Good luck? I didn't have the brain for anything, and I was in the restroom much of the night when I did it.

[the_rck]

::nods:: Thanks.

Maybe I should put some sort of game on my laptop that I'm sure is compatible with the OS (I've got some old hidden object games, but I bought them all when I was running a much, much older OS). I can take the laptop into the bathroom if I'm going to be in there for long.

It's hard to judge. Scott went in there frequently, but he never stayed for very long. If I react similarly, I'll be in the living room (about ten steps from the toilet) a lot of the time.

[untonuggan]

we did not have gym uniforms or showers after gym at my hippie school. everyone survived, though i think "zero uniforms" is probably better for teenagers than "uniforms optional."

good luck this weekend <3

[the_rck]

Gym 'uniforms' when I was in middle school were any old pair of shorts and any old t-shirt. Given that the school hasn't told us otherwise, I'm assuming that the kids who change for gym put on that sort of thing. It's more a matter of whether or not the kids think they'll be more comfortable and/or better able to move if they change.

I suspect that making changing optional is partly because there are some female Muslim students who may or may not feel a religious or family obligation to keep covered. (I have no idea if we've got students from other backgrounds that might go that way. We probably do.) If half the class is changing, and half the class isn't (Cordelia gives me the impression that most of the kids don't), the kids who don't stand out a lot less.

I have no idea if the male students are required to wear cups. When I had gym in middle school, the boys were required to. The teacher told the whole class about the requirement and then took the boys off to the locker room to explain just what that meant. If the kids aren't required to change, cups might not be required. I don't know. I think Cordelia would be horribly embarrassed if I asked her.

[carbonel]

When I had my colonoscopy a couple of years ago, I ended up staying up all night. I alternated between rereading a book I loved but hadn't read in a long time, and surfing the web, mostly (IIRC) perusing Captain Awkward.

I hope yours goes well. Most people (including me) say the prep is annoying, and the procedure itself is a doddle.

[the_rck]

I'm sure that the worst part for me is going to be me stressing out about doing the prep exactly right and about getting to the appointment on time. We're going to have to leave earlier than we normally would because traffic is nasty at that time of day, and I'm not sure how long it will take us to find parking and find the part of the hospital where the procedure is to be. The hospital website has terrible, terrible building maps, so I can't look there. (They mark bathrooms, stairs, and elevators but not clinics. I have no clue why.)

This will be a little more complicated because they're going to do an endoscopy, too, so I'll have to be out completely, and the whole thing will take that much longer. I'm more worried about what the endoscopy will find than I am about what the colonoscopy will turn up.

[icecoldrain.livejournal.com]

Man, I wish that changing for gym was optional at any of my schools lol. There were showers at my schools, but no one ever used them. Thank god we were never required to shower after PE!

Good luck with your colonoscopy! You can always watch TV or listen to music with headphones.

[the_rck]

We were technically required to shower after gym in middle school, but the adults who were supposed to make sure it happened didn't want to come downstairs to check, so as long as we ran the water, they were satisfied.

I can listen to music with earbuds, I think, but I can't watch TV with headphones unless I send Scott out to buy something with a long enough cord. I need to sit at least six feet away from the TV, and the longest cord we've got for earbuds is about two feet long, maybe less. It takes twenty minutes to get to Target from here, and I'm reluctant to send Scott out to buy something that will have such limited use.

[icecoldrain.livejournal.com]

I would've hated that lol. It was a requirement when my mom was in school, but the showers hadn't been used in a long time when I entered middle school. The only time we ever used them was when it was water day. Basically, it was water fights (water balloons, water guns, buckets and cups of water) all day long out on the field. We were covered in mud and we were all trying to spray the mud out of our hair and off of our clothes in the showers lol.

Oh yeah, you'd have to use earbuds on the computer to watch netflix. It totally won't work for the TV lol. I don't think there's a long enough cord for the TV unless you got a wireless headset that you could hook up to the TV.

[indelicateink]

Good luck on your endoscopies!

I had a colonoscopy/endoscopy duo a couple years back. Agree with carbonel that the prep was a PIA, the procedure itself was a breeze. (Mine was the day after Christmas, so having to miss all the Christmas food due to fasting/eating only liquids was a bummerrrr.)

Are you taking the clean-out prep that's a pill or a mix that you drink? Both times I've done it I've done the drink, and... it's a bit time-consuming. But oh boy is it thorough. (Also boring, because one spends hours in the loo letting one's body get rid of everything ever consumed since childhood.) I think I started around 6:00 and finally grabbed some sleep around 12-1:00.

(If you're taking the pill, I wouldn't worry too much about doing anything wrong: the pill does all the work; iirc you just have to drink lots and lots and lots of water? If you're taking the drink mix, the hardest part for me was *drinking* all of that foul brew; I couldn't finish it, but it must have cleaned me out as much as I felt it did [it possibly helped that I consumed only liquids the 24 hours before], because everything still went okay.)

Good luck!! Happy to answer any questions. Hope everything goes well, and that the results are good.

[the_rck]

Sadly, it's the drink. I'll be doing three rounds of it-- 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., 5:00 p.m. to 7 p.m., and 3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. I've been told that the drink is easier to swallow if it's very, very cold, so I'm going to mix it this afternoon and see if I can wedge it into the refrigerator. One bottle will do two rounds of the drink. I'm not sure there will be time enough for the second bottle to get cold between the second round and the third.

I probably ought to get up at 2:00 a.m. to take my thyroid medication. I'm not entirely easy with the idea of taking it in the middle of the clean out. My doctor said it would be fine, but the stuff is so finicky about not being mixed with anything, and it needs an hour on an empty stomach to absorb.

[indelicateink]

Honestly, I chose the drink over the pills myself (the doctor's office was like, ARE YOU SURE?) because the pills come with a black box warning. Made me super nervous, lol--do I want to take any chance in the world at shuffling off because I was told to empty my bowels? Not... really? With the drink mix, I felt much more in control of what my body could handle.

fwiw, the day before the cleanse, I stuck to only consuming clear fluids (soups, jello, drinks etc), and I think that made the process faster/easier (found this advice online; lots of good advice about making cleanses more painless are to be found online). Honestly I was pretty darn cleaned out within about six hours, and without finishing the entirety of the drink regimen; there was, frankly, nothing left to eliminate. I mention this because **possibly** you may not need the 3am cleanse, and maybe you can take your thyroid medication without worry...? YMMV absolutely, of course.

Yes, go COLD! And try a straw--if you can get the drink down your throat without touching your tongue, so much the better.

[the_rck]

I'm on clear liquids only today. Soup/broth is specifically banned. And I'm to do the third round of clean out no matter what. The instructions are quite adamant.

I've only had one serving of jell-o today, and I already don't want more.