Although I usually refrain from discussing my health problems on this forum, I’m gonna break that rule a bit and tell you about my recent colonoscopy. Yea, I finally had one. I’m 53, and my doctor was lobbying pretty hard for me to get my entrails checked out. What pushed it over the top for me was the fact that a friend (an older guy, admittedly) recently went in for his first one, and they found colon cancer. (So far he’s holding up well, determined to beat it; I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.)

Actually, there’s not much for me to tell about the colonoscopy itself, other than it went well. Nothing bad was found (thank goodness!); and more interestingly, my gastro guy’s last name starts with a Z. So yes, I had Doctor Z driving an endoscope up my butt.

Still, most of the story here is about the preparation phase. That’s the part that everyone hates.

While “getting up my courage” to finally have the procedure done, I read a number of people’s experiences posted on various web sites. And that all helped me to take the plunge. So I’m gonna say a few things about my own preparation experience, in hope that it might help someone else who is nervous about getting a colonoscopy. Everyone’s experience of a colonoscopy is different, but the bottom line is that you CAN get thru it and that it IS worth the trouble.

Doctor Z’s preparation rules were fairly simple, compared to some others that I’ve read about on the web: you finish breakfast the day before by 9AM, then eat nothing after that. You continue to drink water, clear juices, broth, tea and clear soda until midnight. From midnight until after you’ve had the thing done, no food OR liquid. For the clean-out, Dr. Z prescribed two (relatively) heavy doses of phospho-soda laxative mixed with ginger ale, four hours apart.

Well, I got thru the first phospho-soda batch pretty well. I kept my nose closed while drinking it, but it really didn’t seem so bad. After an hour or so, a lot of colon cleaning got done. Around 5 PM, I downed the second laxative cocktail. By 5:30, the waterfalls had started, but I was disheartened by it. There were still a lot of food particles mixed in, including some black shapes from the skin of a piece of baked squash that I ate the day before (which was probably baked a little too much).

Oh no, I thought. Dr. Z would see the black particles that didn’t come out and get mad, and would make me do it all over again. So I decided to chug down as much water as possible, and thus maximize the final clean-out. At one point I was literally gulping water into me while it was shooting out the other end. I was doing a real power-wash of my intestines. My final sitting occurred just after 6PM, and I was a bit confused. There weren’t any more black pieces in the liquid, but there were still a few very small food bits, and they were rather translucent. Was that good enough?

I didn’t quite realize just then that my body was headed for a crash. I may have had a sip of juice at that point, but it wasn’t enough. I soon became disoriented and fearful. With 20/20 hindsight, I should have made a cup of tea as to have bought time, when I could have drank enough sweet stuff to have stayed out of la-la land. But by 8:30, I couldn’t figure out what to do. I got scared. Then my stomach got upset and I tried to heave; only bile and acid came up. Yuck. I slept on and off throughout the night, waking up quite sure that I couldn’t go thru with the whole thing. I was tempted to pick up the phone and call Dr. Z’s line as to tell him that I was canceling. Somehow I decided to hold off until morning, but I was sure that I would die if I tried to have a colonoscopy in this condition.

Well, morning arrived, and the daylight made me feel a little bit better. Not great, but just enough to get on with the show. Still, it was only about 30 minutes before my brother was to pick me up when I finally decided not to cancel. I was unwashed and unshaven, but what the heck. They’d have to take me as I was.

When I got to Dr. Z’s den of endoscopy, I was just coherent enough to get thru the check-in and preparation rituals. Everyone there was very nice (despite my unkempt condition), and that helped immensely. My brother didn’t say anything brilliant to me on the drive over, but I got the sense that he knew that I could get thru it. So yea, I needed that last minute human encouragement to finally do the deed.

And, as I said before, the whole thing came to a happy ending. Dr. Z said to me afterwards that I did a very good prep job. I later found out why that was important. There have been studies indicating that colonoscopies aren’t 100% perfect. There is a small chance (as in any medical procedure, really) that something bad will not be picked up. I recently read one of those studies on a web site, and it speculated that if the preparation job wasn’t really clean and some food particles still lined parts of the colon, a “bad thing” (polyp, neoplasma, whatever) could be covered up and passed over. And you don’t want that.

Well, I’m not a doctor and I’m not trying to give out any medical advice here. I’m just telling you about my own experience. Still, I would suggest that if and when you have a colonoscopy, you should discuss the importance of doing a clean and thorough preparation with your doctor beforehand. Doing a “power wash” at the end like I did may not be right for you (although when I have to do it again I’ll try to be ready for the ensuing “crash”). Maybe it’s better to change your diet in the last few days before the procedure as to help make the clean-out go better. Or doing a follow-up butt enema? Again, it’s all something to talk about with your doctor; let her or him give you the best advice for your specific situation.

But do have it done if you are getting near 50 (or earlier if you have a family history or other relevant problems). As my friend tells me, colon cancer really does happen, and colonoscopies are the front-line of defense against it — if they are done in time. No matter how unpleasant, you can forget about a rough colonoscopy in a few days (as I’m already starting to do). But colon cancer is a drag that goes on and on (although a lot of people do eventually beat it, or at least learn to live with it). As much as I hate to say it — LISTEN TO YOUR DOCTOR!

(And then actually consider following his or her orders.)

THERE’S KITSCH AROUND THE CORNER: I didn’t become aware of the Thomas Kinkade phenomenon until lately, when I noticed that a small Kinkade litho print that my brother bought for my mother’s house. Right after that, I finally noticed the Thomas Kinkade Gallery not far from my humble abode here in Northern New Jersey. So I took a walk over to it and looked in the window at the displayed artwork. It seemed a bit . . . . formulistic, shall we say. Cloyingly sentimental, perhaps. Trying a bit too hard to evoke some longing for the good old days. Just the kind of stuff that my mother likes! (Smile)

I’ve seen this kind of art before. Growing up and dwelling much of my life in the working class suburbs, I’ve come to know the cheap stuff pretty well; the sentimental Norman Rockwell knock-offs, portraits of the sea and rustic villages, the black-velvet craze of the late 70s and early 80s, etc. I once saw two big black velvets side-by-side at an outdoor market along Route 46 in Little Ferry; one was Elvis, the other was Jesus. I’m really sorry that I didn’t get a picture of that.

The interesting thing is how Kinkade, “the painter of light”, is using cutting-edge American marketing techniques to stay above the K-Mart gallery scene (and thus keep his prices up). His stuff is as mass-produced as anything I saw in the home furnishing section of Two Guys (a classic proletariat-oriented department store chain that went under in the late 70s) back when I was a kid. And yet, the Kinkade organization is convincing a whole lot of people that these things are unique, collector’ items, heirlooms, an investment. Having an exclusive gallery in “Upper Montclair”, a rather tony suburban neighborhood noted for its artistic sensibilities, certainly doesn’t hurt.

Hey, I certainly won’t begrudge people for their tastes. I’m not exactly on the cutting-edge of artistic sensibilities. I’m a sucker for sentimentality too. It just amazes me how effectively Kinkade is making a good buck on stuff that really isn’t all that different from what you can get in the Wal Mart home furnishings section. You can find lots of “light” there too!

Anyway, here are pics of the Kinkade Gallery of Upper Montclair, with an autumn display theme. Note for the legal beagles, these shots were taken from a public sidewalk, where the US Constitution says that everything (other than perhaps a top-secret stealth bomber at an air base somehow visible from a highway) is fair game for “artistic expression” such as photography. Hey, my own “works of art” are hardly any less worthy than Kinkade’s, even if I haven’t found a way to make a buck off of them! Enjoy.

  

They had a computer/electronic equipment recycling day in my town yesterday. I had some junk that wasn’t working anymore, so I packed it in a box and headed down to the DPW. I was a little wary, having once gone to a County toxic junk day where you had to wait in a line with your car for almost a half hour before you could drop your stuff off (which reminded me of the gasoline lines of the late 70’s and early 80’s). But no, this went quickly. No big line; there were only two or three cars ahead of me. It was a very efficient operation, just pull up, hand the stuff over to a couple of guys who help you unload, and pull right out. Easy.

The town hired a group called Advanced Recovery, Inc. to collect and recycle the computer junk. I tried to do a search on Advanced Recovery, but couldn’t find too much. They have a web site that says they have two locations, one in Newark, NJ and one in Tennessee. I assume they are run by a bunch of for-profit capitalists. But nonetheless, I wish them well — so long as they are the real deal. I assume that they re-sell what ever is salvagable and dispose of the rest in an environmentally responsible fashion. Their locations should bring jobs to places that sorely need them. Hopefully they don’t dump electronic stuff having mercury and other toxic waste into some abandoned Appalachian coal mine (most computers and electric gizmos in your home have toxic stuff in them; thus the need for special disposal).

Capitalism can be done in an enlightened, socially beneficial manner. Unfortunately, the free-for-all nature of open market competition usually encourages companies, both big and small, to take shortcuts that often put the public in danger (defective products, cheating on pollution laws, charter bus companies that don’t fix things right and hire cowboy drivers, etc.). I just hope that Advanced Recovery Inc. stays “in the light” and avoids “the dark side” of capitalism. The guys that I saw running the show on Saturday looked like groovy people. Let’s hope that our system still allows such guys to do well by doing good.

One more thing. I read a little about the recent comments on Islam that got Pope Ratzinger (Benedict, whatever) into hot water. In my estimation, the problems that cause this kind of thing are twofold: 1.) both sides (the Islamic leaders and the Vatican) are living in the past. A sense of history is a good thing, but the Pope was quoting a 14th century document about an argument between the Byzantium Emperor and a Persian Islamic scholar. And the Muslim authorities who chastised “Il Papa” pretty much took the side of that long-dead scholar. Everyone here is living in the past. 2.) No one involved in this little affair has as much as a smidgeon of humor about it. I don’t think there’s been a pope who could relax and laugh at a joke since John the 23rd. All of his successors, including the popular John Paul II, just took it all way too seriously. And the Islamic institutions . . . . let’s not even go there.

The Pope was hinting that Islam has a bias, however small, towards jihaddist violence, given the story of Muhammed and his warrior conquests. Yea, there’s something to that. But for many Islamic people today, Islam is mostly an institutional religion that presents the old stories as a metaphor for the fervor that should accompany faith in the Almighty. And Christianity, despite the inherent peacefullness of the story of Christ, has shown over the centuries that it knows how to make war and aggression with the best of them.

For better and for worse, Christianity sited itself in areas of the world that have experienced tremendous economic growth over the past half-millenium. The Islamic lands were once prosperous from being located at the crossroads of trade between Europe, Asia and Africa. But today they’re in a slump. Christian Europe got out of its slump (the Dark Ages) after the faithful finally got restless and defied Church authority, so as to advance. The Islamic world hasn’t quite reached that stage yet. So you have two cranky institutions, the Catholic Church (which once ruled an impoverished kingdom and still hasn’t gotten over being marginalized into a mere “spiritual authority”), and Islam (which still rules a kingdom that was once rich and mighty, and hasn’t gotten over that kingdom’s fall into poverty). Neither of them are in the mood right now for laughing, turning the other cheek, and just getting on with living in modern times.

Let’s just hope that Christians and Muslims learn to laugh a bit more and not take their institutions so seriously. Both religions claim to be God’s true representative on the planet Earth. At least one of them has to be wrong. But most likely, they’re both wrong. Hey, some common ground!

I’ve been all geeked out lately, which explains why I’m behind with this blog. I really was never much of a computer head, but my trusty Dell Dimension L667R is getting old (like me), and who knows how much longer it’s got (again, like me). So I decided to go on ebay and get a “lifeboat”, a second computer to keep around as a spare in case of an unexpected crash one fine day. Yea, I do eventually need to get a new computer. But with my finances currently under pressure because of my mother’s home care needs, I just don’t feel like shelling out a grand or so for something decent (yea, I see all those ads by Dell and other companies for “full systems” for less than $500; but when I finally get a new computer, I want something substantial, not an e-mail / video game toy; gonna need a Pentium processor, full business software suite, DVD burner, etc.).

So I put up $70 and bought another old Dimension L, this time an L866R (maybe 6 months younger than my venerable 667). Seemed as though it would be easy to clone the old system to the new, since I have Norton Ghost 2003. BUTTTTT, things turned out to be a bit more complex than I had figured. Well, it’s a long story, but suffice it to say that the new system has taken on a life of its own. I had to put up additional cash (another $170 worth), but now I have a Win 2K system with a CD burner, modem, network card, 80G hard drive, 384M RAM, a KVM switch to go back and forth with the original computer, and pretty much all the software I had with the old system.

Do I really need two computers? No, but it’s nice to be ready, given the degree to which I’ve come to rely on the darn thing over the past 5 years. And since I don’t have anti-virus on the new [old] computer, I can fool around with “resource-hog” programs that don’t run well on the main box, e.g. StarLogo. Once I’m finally ready to get a new system (perhaps with Windows VISTA — yuk), I’m hoping to keep at least one of the old boxes. That should qualify me for permanent geek-dom!

Interesting Article of the Week: While I was slaving over my new ancient computer, the NY Times published an article on some recent medical research that really makes you think. It’s about a series studies which all show there to be a gene that regulates stem cells in a way that makes human beings fall apart as they get older. It’s basically the old-age gene. When you’re young, your stem cells churn away to keep your muscles tight and your skin smooth and your bones and joints strong and your eyes and organs working right. But when you get old, those cells stop knocking out replacements for the worn out cells throughout your body, so your skin wrinkles and your muscles get weak and achy and your joints get rusty and your eyes and heart and everything else just don’t work very well anymore.

Well, in and of itself, that’s not surprising. But what is interesting is the finding that the same process also keeps cancer from happening. OK, it isn’t perfect; in reality, old people get cancer, much more than young people. But without this genetic process and the Ink4 protein that it produces, cancer would be much more prevalent. We’d seem to be in great shape in our 50s and 60s, but out of nowhere we’d all suddenly be dying of cancer. Hardly anyone would make it to 70. (FOOTNOTE: The latest theories about cancer say that it is caused by a series of random mutations that take place in your stem cell genes over time, maybe one mutation every 5 to 10 years. It takes a total of maybe 6 or 7 mutations to fire-up the cancer process, which makes the stem cells go into overdrive and knock out tumor cells in lieu of normal body cells. These mutations can be hastened by environmental factors such as exposure to toxic chemicals or radiation. And some people have genes that make these mutations easier and faster. But even the perfect human in the perfect environment will eventually have cell mutations. At bottom, the question of when these mutations happen is a throw of the dice. I knew a guy who unexpectedly died of leukemia in his 30s. We all tried to explain it away, e.g. he spent time in Buffalo where the water was toxic from Love Canal. But most likely, he was just unlucky; his mutation dice rolled the wrong way. So long as our stem cells kept churning away, sooner or later everyone would get cancer. But the Ink4 protein turns the stem cells down after age 40, lengthening the average time for the 5th, then 6th and 7th mutation to take place, thus putting off the start of the cancer process.)

What a crazy choice nature has given us. Option 1: stay in great shape until you are 50, maybe 60, then be absolutely assured of getting cancer. Option 2: go into a steady decline after age 40, but hold the cancer off longer (or until something else gets you). Well, actually we don’t have that choice; nature (through evolution) already made the decision. We will suffer old age, we will become weak and frail and dependent; but on average we will stay around longer. According to the Times article, medical science isn’t going to find any way around this nasty choice any time soon. The promise that stem cell research will let us live to 100 feeling like a college student all the time has taken a big setback. The dream of 80 years of hot sex has been put on ice. It’s back to reality for today’s youth. Maybe you all should go back to treating old people (like me) nice, because it turns out that you’re probably going to suffer old age too.

PS, my generation was told by science that we would travel to the Moon and Mars for vacation trips. Instead, we got personal computers. Does today’s youth believe science about stem-cell fountains of youth and pollution-less hydrogen cars? Bah, I’ll stick with what I can trust; including my old computers.

Love Lies Bleeding: The young couple living upstairs from me recently decided to take their relationship to the next step, i.e. engagement. In a burst of romantic enthusiasm, the young man decided to celebrate their commitment by decorating his SUV with professions of love. However, the remains of Hurricane Ernesto just came through town, drenching us with several inches of rain. And just as love itself is so often worn down by the storms of life, my neighbor’s windshield poetry was somewhat the worse for it all.