On the sick list.

This has been my view for the past several days.  It's a view of the mountain, between the parking garage and an administrative building belonging to the hospital.

I took the photo from here.

I'm out now.

I was in as I had a robotic right colectomy.  In other words, I had a large (very large) polyp in my large intestine that had to be removed.  I learned this was there when I went in for a colonoscopy, which I wrote about (in its entirety) here:

On modern medicine

As I wrote here the other day, I went in for a colonoscopy.

I'm almost a decade past the point where you are supposed to get one.  Just too busy, I guess, to have made it in back then, or in between, when I should have.  Having said that, a couple of my contemporaries I know very well only made it in recently as well.

In my last post on this topic, I discussed the statistics of colon cancer.  What I learned in my colonoscopy was that I have a polyp that was too big to be removed, and now I'll have to have surgery to address it.

The doctor is nearly certain that its not cancerous, but it has to be removed.  He also basically indicated it would turn to cancer if it wasn't removed, at some point.  Not yet, basically, but some day.

Which puts me in that statistic in a way.

Lesson learned.

Another lesson learned, however, is that this also puts me in the class of people who'd die early on for sure but for modern medicine.  A sobering thought.  We all imagine ourselves living until 102 worry free, but that isn't the case for most of us.  Lots of us make it further now than we would have, thanks to modern medicine.

This was the following surgery.

This turned out to be a bigger deal. . . a much bigger deal, than I wanted to admit it was.  In my mind, I wanted to pretend that it would be in and out, or at least I'd be out by Friday.  Nope.  I did get out on Saturday, but I'm feeling rather beat up, and it's clear that it's going to take several days to get back to normal.

Army with two IV hookups.  I had two, as I was so dehydrated when I came in they had a very difficult time finding my veins.

I am on the mend now, however.

A few observations.

Colonoscopies have been around, but they didn't become common until 1985 when Ronald Reagan had one which saved his life.  The screening recommendations came into effect in 1995, after the death of my father, who had one when he fell extremely ill in the early 1990s.  While it was probably unconnected, there was some suspicion at the time that a severe infection in his intestine was moved around by the scope, leading to the infection to spread.

As noted, in retrospect, that's probably not what occurred.

Anyhow, whether from that unhappy event or just a family reticence to seeking medical attention for anything, I ignored the current advice which is to go in for a scope at age 50.  You really should, and my failure to do so caused me to end up with this, probably.

That's the first observation here.

A second one is this.  It's interesting to note, I guess, that if I hadn't had this, I probably would have died from this right about the same time my father died from something sort of related, if not perfectly.  So my life has probably been extended by modern medicine.

The boyfriend of the sister of a good friend of mine died from colon cancer, I'd note, and it was a very bad way to go.  He'd been a tobacco chewer, and that may have caused it.  In my case, I don't use tobacco, so that isn't it.  Maybe genetics is.

The night before the procedure, as a distraction, I finished watching Father Stu, the cinematic treatment of the life of Father Stuart Long, who was born the same year I was, but who died of a terrible disease in 2014 which robbed him of his physical abilities.  He had been a boxer at one time, and was quite athletic.  There was some thought of not ordaining him at all, because of his affliction, but the Bishop of Helena moved forward as he sensed himself receiving the message that there was power in suffering, and he should be moved forward.  At his ordination, Father Stuart stated: "I stand before you as a broken man. Barring a miracle, I'm going to die from this disease, but I carry it for the cross of Christ, and we can all carry our crosses."

I note that here as the movie concluded with comments from Father Stuart himself noting that he felt his afflictions were given to him as a gift to overcome things that were a barrier to his union with Christ.  I sort of feel that way about this too, albeit very minor in comparison they may be.

I'd also note, in thinking about it, that this relates back to the purpose of this page, which is ostensibly research for a book.  One of the characters in that book is in his late 40s when the tale takes place, which oddly enough is about the age I was when I started this blog.  Anyhow, that character, perhaps the central protagonist, would be recognizable in lots of ways to people who know me.  Which also means, if I follow that through, he's likely a character that would have died a pretty bad death of disease in his early 60s, a very common experience at the time.

Modern medicine.

Long suffering spouse.