For whatever reason, I have always been a procrastinator. I’m not proud of it, but I am aware of it. I am routinely more than happy to put off `til tomorrow that which would be more prudent to tackle today. This dates back to my grade-school years and is arguably rooted in any number of intricate emotional quandaries, if the studies are to be believed. While I’d usually get around to completing assignments and studying for looming exams prior to the proverbial 11th hour, too often I was wasting precious time that could have been more constructively spent.
In ensuing years, my penchant for procrastination has been largely kept in check by my bug-eyed preoccupation with staying gainfully employed. Lose your job a few times, like I have, and you’ll get there, too, although that means an excessive amount of worrying that usually outweighs the likelihood of the unceremonious dismissal I’m dreading. So, while I’m invariably “over-concerned” about impending deadlines and their ensuing demands, I’m less likely to procrastinate in terms of executing the particulars.
This is not at all the case, however, in terms of looking after my health. My approach to that, up until recently, has been a fairly irresponsible one that only involves regular check ups, check-ins and office visits when absolutely necessary. Don’t fix what ain’t broke, amiright?
Yeah, well, that’s not right.
They say that once you cross the Rubicon of your 50th year, you need to have a few things checked out. Probably the most notorious of those things involves having a colonoscopy. For the uninitiated, that’s an endoscopic examination of the labyrinthian interiors of your butt with a fiber-optic tube. No, that's not a shot of it above. That's a still from 1979's "The Black Hole." I couldn't resist. In terms of colonoscopies, don’t do a Google image search for those, …you will not enjoy what you find.
Ultimately, it’s not really a big deal. The procedure itself, I gather, takes only minutes, and better they should find something when it’s actionable than when it’s too late, right?
I’m now 53. I should have had this particular task taken care of three years ago (although more recently they’re saying you should do it at 45). But I didn’t. I chalked it up to being too busy at work (true, but still) or never finding the right time to do it, which is also kinda bullshit. The real reasons are more about trepidation and procrastination.
The prep for the procedure — inarguably the worst part — involves chugalugging two bottles of weapons-grade laxatives over the course of the day before. This means you’re going to want to stay home and stay close to the porcelain, so to speak, for what I can only imagine is a robust afternoon of … well, you know.
In all honesty, I did have every intention of getting this done last year, but then, of course, the pandemic arrived and took a big dump — pardon the strenuously unfortunate pun — over all of those plans.
Once the smoke started to clear on COVID-19 (although I wouldn’t quite count on it being done and dusted just yet), I went back to my primary-care doc and bit the bullet, making an appointment for a colonoscopy at long last.
The timing needed to be strategic. Last weekend, we drove my son Oliver up to Vermont to go back to the camp he had to miss last year. You might remember a series of drama-drenched posts about his first visit to the place. On Sunday, we put my daughter Charlotte on a bus to her grandmother’s out to the East End of Long Island. With both teens now out of the house, I can focus on the health-positive-albeit-insalubrious mission ahead.
Today is prep day. I had a light breakfast and one cup of coffee. Come 1pm, I am relegated to only “clear liquids.” At 4pm, I crack open the first bottle of the stuff. I’ll spare you the details of what I expect will transpire after that.
The procedure itself is tomorrow morning at 9am. Maybe not a “full report,” but expect any pertinent news later that day.
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