Archive: April 2006

The last few days have been nice and warm, about 5 degrees above average. Snow is melting and the soil is slowly thawing out. I'll be looking for plants coming up soon. YES!

It rained most of the night and much of the morning. Even in the shady areas, there are few remnants of snow left. Saw the first juncos today. Such cute little birds. Surely another sign of spring.

Well, starting tomorrow morning after breakfast, there's a 48-hour fast ahead of me for the colonoscopy on Monday. Ought to be interesting through the stoma...

The Relay For Life in Edmonton is scheduled for May 26 this year. If you are interested in a contribution to the Cancer Society, please contact me.

More information...

A very touching story on 20/20 about a baby receiving a new heart. Then the parents of the heart recipient met the donor family. Talk about emotions... The donor parents listening to their child's heart, beating in another child's body...

Clarification of the 48-hour FAST to prepare for the colonoscopy... I can have clear fluids such as clear broth, black coffee, apple juice, even Jell-O. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight before the procedure.

The colonscopy was done in SIX minutes. After fasting the weekend, putting up with "Fleet" laxative filling up bag after bag, not sleeping properly out of concern I might pop a big, the whole thing was over in 6 minutes.

With a stoma there is apparently less discomfort than if they have to stick the tube up the rectum.  So I chose not to be sedated after Dr Todoruk said he would never take sedation. I figured, if he could do it, I could do it.

Dr Todoruk proceeded to push the tube through what was left of my large intestine, and even into the end of the small intestine. I was watching with him on the monitor and he was explaining what he was seeing. Due to the large magnification it looked like a scifi movie. I noted there was still a lot of crap on the intestinal wall that the Fleet had not washed out. That did not seem to be a concern as he was looking for polyps and off-colour spots, i.e., blood.

Prognosis: Everything was OK and the next checkup will be in three years. 

When I was done, Cecile had disappeared and wasn't answering her cell phone, and she had not told the nurses where she had gone. So I just was in a waiting room, eating the sandwich I brought, having some juice. I was glad I brought those. I guess Cecile had not counted on me being done early.

See NDDIC for more info about colonoscopies.

The red part on this diagram indicates roughly the colon part examined during the colonoscopy.

The blue part indicates the part that was removed in May 2004. The red part was the subject of today's procedure.

An interesting note from Dr Todoruk was that I only had 60% of my colon. A normal colon is 6 feet which means that about 2.5 feet was removed. I thought it was only 1 ft... Goes to show that not all information given is correct. 

Happy Easter to all. Signs of life all over the garden, despite the snow we woke up to. A robin was singing his heart out 5AM, well before light and well before the snow started. That sure cooled him off.

Spent most of the afternoon at Duncan's new house. The only person missing was Angela, Vincent's wife. Duncan cooked us a very nice meal with garlic shrimp and mushroom, baked salmon and other assorted goodies.

Then, as we all sat at the table, Duncan introduced the topic that we would be spending more on Christmas gifts. In other words, Monica is pregnant. Wonderful news.

There had to be something more than keeping my salary when I switched jobs. It seems I'm not getting any increase, not even cost of living, until I retire.

So far all my Martagon lilies are up. Here's hoping for no more heavy frosts. We've had great weather this past week, 26 yesterday and 25 today. We're supposed to get rain the next few days, which is much needed.

Wind scared the bejeebers out of me just now. Probably the precursor to the rain but still. Sounded like someone was banging on the door...