Bottoms Up and Binging on Netflix

When four days of your life are taken up by one over-whelming theme a blogger feels compelled to write about it even though she or he may not want to because---well, because it’s a gross topic and I for one live in a time and place where grossness is usually left to under-aged boys and men who are having a hard time growing up aka they still love a good story involving poop. For me it started on a Friday night at 7:00 when I wasn’t allowed to eat anything but jello and that fasting lasted until Monday at 4:30 when I could finally have food again. During the fasting---if you haven’t guessed by now---I had to consume four Suprep treatments for a colonoscopy and EGD that were performed on the same surgical table at the same time. 

Why did I get so lucky as to have drink four Suprep solutions over three days followed up with 32 oz of water after each bottle instead of the normal prescription of two bottles of Suprep in one day? Because I’ve had IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) off and on since my 40s as a result of drinking a glass of raw cows milk and not seeking treatment for the diarrhea that followed for several months. Turned out the raw milk had some kind of parasite in it that got killed with medication but I was left with IBS that comes and goes---sometimes for years at a time---but if you’re prone to get impacted bowels my gastroenterologist's protocol is the prolonged fast and longer poop fest. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t eat and I drank every ounce of Suprep and water and I barely left the bathroom. I’d think it was safe and I’d make it across the bedroom to the door leading to the kitchen and have to turn right back around. When I wasn’t in the bathroom doing business I was doing laundry and cleaning in the bathroom. I lost track of how many half showers I took---and you can guess which half got showered. Even when I got back home after surgery was over I was washing the clothes I wore to the hospital because my youngest niece, who took me to my procedure, insisted. I wore Crocs cross trainers to the hospital and even they got thoroughly decontaminated as did my Crocs bedroom slippers. I’ve never asked but I’m guessing my niece is a bit of my germaphobic like me. 

So what did my surgeon find and what was she looking for? She found my tracks from mouth to rectum are free of cancer, polyps or anything else out of the norm. She also didn’t find anything like a small bleeder that would explain why I’ve been anemic for the past three years and why my right leg swells up from time to time. This was the latest and final test I’ve been through since last July 4^th where they’ve been trying to figure out both of these anomaly's. They started with a ultrasound on my leg to rule out a blood clot. Next was the EKG and ultra sound on heart and lungs followed by scans of my kidneys, bladder and lady parts (the inside edition ultra sound and many of us know how much fun that test is). And did I mention I’ve lost track of the blood draws I’d had? 

The two weeks leading up the surgery I’ve been binge watching a (bad) Netflix series called The Resident. The show has a resident, Conrad Hawkins, who is supposed to be the best diagnostic practitioner to come along since the vaccine for Polio was developed. He can just talk to a patient and often figure out what obscure thing caused the symptoms, that brought him or her into the ER, then they run the tests to prove him right. He’s always right, of course, and where is my Doctor Hawkins when I need a diagnosis? My real doctors ran out of tests to do. 

But I think I figured my leg swelling issue out on my own just from watching The Resident. A patient on the show had some crushed vertebraes in his back---the same ones I do---and it was causing problems with his legs. And that reminded me that my bone doctor mentioned that those verebraes effect my legs and that maintaining a good posture when sitting was important. It was the reason I bought myself an expensive desk chair five years ago. The dark side of my brain needs to bill the other side of my brain for that diagnosis. A couple of the doctors on that Netflix series say that corporate medicine is all about the up-coding and billing.

The show was advertised as a cross between House and Gray's Anatomy but I should have read a few reviews before investing so much time in The Resident. Phrases like the  “doctors don’t always practice good medicine” and "the stories features terrible people playing God…” might have put me off from watching it. My opinion? If half the stuff the series shows is true-to-life happenings in hospitals we’d never go inside one and I have to believe a lot of the story-lines were taken from medical lawsuits. It's just that so many things are condensed into a short time frame when you binge that it looks worse than it is. But I kept on watching because I’ve decided watching the worst stuff that could happen during a surgery was akin to me watching and reading so many apocalyptic dramas during the pandemic. It gives me a strange kind of comfort to go deep into the darkness when I'm about to experience something scary. I can prepare for the 'worst' and be happy when it doesn't come.

If you’re still reading this “cheery” little post I owe you a gold star for sticking with it. I do apologize. Truly, between this medical event and my brother’s passing I’ve done nothing else to write about. Nothing I wanted to write about. But that changes in a few minutes when I’m going to an opening day viewing party for the Tiger’s Baseball season. 

On another cheery note, I bought  myself a gift for not having a bleeder inside me to fix and recover from…a Mahjong mat to go with my new mahjong set. Have I mentioned lately how much I love that game? Buying myself a frivolous gift for coming through a dark patch in life is a long-time tradition in my life. Or as one of my blogging friends, Dawn, might say, "A little retail therapy is good for the whatever ails you."

Until Next Wednesday?