Geezer

There are 384 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 8 of 39).

Scoping out today’s colonoscopy events

Today I head in for my colonoscopy. I’m to arrive an hour early (8 AM) to make sure paperwork gets filled out, any remaining questions get answered, and to get changed into my gown. While I set settled on a hospital bed, an anesthesiologist will insert an IV into my arm. The doctor will meet with me to answer any other questions I might have and then when the procedure room is ready I’ll get wheeled into it.

Once in the room, I’ll have the opportunity to say hello to the team doing the colonoscopy, usually two other staffers (nurse and anesthesiologist, I believe) and the doctor. I’ll get shifted from the hospital bed to a operating table and told to lie on my left side with my knees pulled up at my chest. I’ll get EKG leads attached to my chest to measure my vital signs.
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Day of colonoscopy prep

So I made it to the tail end (ha!) of my day of colonoscopy preparation and its been better than the first time. What does a day of colonoscopy preparation mean? I’m about to tell ya. Why do I tell ya? Not because it’s glamorous or fun, but because someday, Dear Reader, you may also be faced with having to get a colonoscopy and you’ll be thinking “dammit, why didn’t I listen to that blogger guy, Whatisname?”

Beginning Monday, I switched to a mostly liquid diet – not because anyone told me to but because I wanted today to be as smooth as possible. I bought a case of Ensure-type nutritional shakes at Costco and swigged them throughout the day yesterday, pausing only for a four-egg dinner because I got so hungry by the end of yesterday. Today, though, was an all clear-liquids diet. That meant Gatorade, Jello, and chicken broth. Mostly Gatorade, as I’ll explain in a moment.
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A park is a park. Don’t restrict play!

No fun allowed.

No fun allowed.


This sign in the Iwo Jima memorial park in Arlington last week had me shaking my head. There’s this beautiful expanse of lawn behind this memorial and some bureaucrat wants to keep people from enjoying it! Did anyone stop to think that the men who bled during the battle for that Godforsaken island would’ve probably loved to be in that park, playing ball instead? Is there any better way to honor our country’s freedom than, you know, actually giving people freedom?

Before there was such a thing as public parks, society used cemeteries for this purpose. Picnickers would plop down right by the grave of Great-Great Aunt Martha and celebrate life. Somewhere along the line cemeteries and memorials mistakenly became places of “quiet reflection only.”

I can think of no better way to honor those who’ve passed than to celebrate the life we continue to live.

Expanded horizons

Cruising Resurrection Bay in Alaska, August 2015

Cruising Resurrection Bay in Alaska, August 2015

I got an unexpected invitation from friends yesterday for Kelly and me to join them for a week of sailing around the Caribbean. Of course I’ve been a sailor since 1988 and I finally made it to the Caribbean with our family trip to Jamaica and Puerto Rico. For some crazy reason, though, it never occurred to me that this was a possibility – that we could go ride the waves for a week in an exotic place. This was a dream of mine in my 20s but I didn’t have the means, or at least it didn’t seem like I did at the time. You either have all of the time and none of the money or all of the money and none of the time.

Back when I was in high school, my dad and his best friend Carl offered me the opportunity to spend the summer working as a deckhand on Carl’s tourist boat in Florida. I opted not to take the offer for some forgotten reason but looking back now it would’ve been a hell of a lot of fun, I’m sure. I love being out on the water, testing oneself against Mother Nature. Facing the great unknown. Humans have been doing it for millennia.
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Looking California, feeling Minnesota?

In a departmental meeting last week a look around the room brought on a revelation: I was the only one present who was propping his head up with his hand. I realized that I do this all the time and yet I rarely see anyone else doing it. Why is this? Isn’t anyone as tired all the time as I am?

When I was younger I always knew that age would bring with it its own aches and pains. I just didn’t realize they would hit me all at once! The past two years have seen my energy drain more rapidly than I expected or, frankly, consider normal. It’s astonishing and frightening at the same time.

I am in need of naps far more frequently than I used to be. I have challenges putting faces to names out of context. I often wake up tired from the get-go. I’ve found myself more reluctant to join in conversation. I frequently pay an unexpected price for physical efforts. Everything seems so much goddamn harder now.

I am concerned that my declining health is jeopardizing my life goals.
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VA Pregnenolone study

For 12 weeks beginning in February, I participated in a VA-funded research study on using pregnenolone to address the effects of Gulf War Illness. Every week I would check in with a research associate, either in person or by phone, and answer a series of questions regarding my health and mental faculties. It involved driving to the Durham VA Medical Center about every other week for bloodwork and cognitive testing. I would also often return with a dose of pregnenolone for that week.

The cognitive tests were challenging and the worst part of the study. Bloodwork by comparison was a breeze, but when asked to study images of shapes and mentally rearrange them or to recall a varying, long list of fruits and vegetables I would begin to sweat. I hated those tests especially.
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Twenty years after Hurricane Fran

Last Monday was the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Fran. I’ve written a lot about Fran here on MT.Net so I won’t geeze and do it again now. I will say, though, how much Raleigh has changed since Fran, and that I’m struck by how many people now living here have no memory of Fran because they weren’t here.

For those of us who were here, though, it will be something we never forget.

17 Years of wedding bliss (well, mostly)

Yesterday marked 17 years of marriage for Kelly and me, still going strong. We celebrated by hauling ourselves and our kids off to multiple practices, meetings, and events, so pretty much a typical day. We Turners have lots of interests and solving the logistical challenges take up most of our time. It’s all good, though. We’re busy but happy. With many friends reaching Stage Empty Nest now, I know that the frantic pace we keep won’t continue forever and I’m sure to miss is once it’s gone.

Kelly and I are going out for our celebratory dinner this evening. Of course, it will occur between taking one kid one place and then taking the other kid another place. Ah, life!

Rachel Rosoff

rachel_rosoff-facebook-profile
Saturday morning, while my family was enjoying the Labor Day weekend, an Enloe High School student named Rachel Rosoff was reporting to work as a lifeguard at a North Raleigh neighborhood pool. Unbeknownst to her, the pool had somehow become electrified, and she was found floating face-down in the water by an arriving coworker who could not rescue her without becoming a victim himself. She was buried yesterday.

I’ve been thinking of Rachel over the past few days. She had many of the same interests that my kids do. I’ve probably even watched her perform with the Improv group at Enloe’s recent open house.

It’s terrifying to me as a parent how quickly lives can be turned upside-down, how you can work to make things safe and still tragedies happen. One moment Rachel was ready to take on the world and her world ends the next. Terrifying and so sad.

No, I didn’t know Rachel or her family but I feel like she and they are part of my family. I hope the Rosoff family finds some peace.

Obama, Truman, and the atomic bomb

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

On my port visit to Sasebo, Japan, during my Navy service, I decided to take a tour of Nagasaki. Standing at ground zero of this city was an unexpectedly deeply moving experience for me, one that I will never forget. The U.S. Army photos displayed there of mangled, radiation-poisoned bodies will haunt me forever.

It was a horrendous decision to drop the bomb. Anyone who visits Nagasaki or Hiroshima and does not agree has lost all humanity.

Obama is visiting Hiroshima and some of my right-wing friends are having a hissy fit about it. Many claim this is a “slap in the face to veterans,” though many of them are not veterans themselves, so it’s unclear how they can speak for veterans.

As a veteran I have debated whether dropping the bomb was the right thing to do. I always thought Harry Truman did a lot of good as President but how could I reconcile his decision to nuke hundreds of thousands of people with his good deeds? I’ve since grudgingly come to think it was the right call, given the fanaticism in Japan at the time. Casualties from an invasion of Japan (proposed as Operation Downfall) would have been from 500,000 to over a million in bloody, take-no-prisoners fighting.

So Truman’s decision most likely saved lives, though it brought the world the madness of nuclear weapons. It was a decision we’re still paying for today.

It’s easy to second-guess President Truman today since things look so much different from our perspective. The war, however, has long been over. Japan and America are close friends and important allies.

Should Obama apologize? I really don’t care either way. The only people who do care are the ones who just can’t let go.