In preparation for today, I rented "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" for
As I was being prepped, the nurse told me they'd be using the same drug "cocktail" they used on me five years ago -- Demerol and Versed. The latter is a Valium derivative that's supposed to cause temporary amnesia. Valium relaxes most folks, but in my case it hits like really strong coffee. I knew my recovery was going to be faster if I let them use it, so I told them to use it. Besides, I didn't have any amnesia the last time they used it!
I was prepped with the IV. The doctor came and talked to me. Then they started the sedatives. I unfortunately didn't get to see the video screen, as my head was turned away from the monitor. I made a few wisecracks about not getting to see "the Probe channel" and had folks cracking up. The doctor was very gentle with both parts of the test. Somewhere in there he removed a polyp from my stomach. I didn't get the dimensions. I slept through portions of the test because I was T-I-R-E-D.
Afterwards my recovery was frighteningly quick. Because I had more Demerol than last time (I had a splitting headache and a longer procedure), The nurse was insisting I go straight home and eat there. As soon as we got to
We gorged ourselves "family style" on a Barbecue Chicken and Thai Chicken pizza and both ordered dessert. I also had iced tea and an iced cappucino. The Versed had me so wired even the chocolate souffle cake a la mode didn't make me the least bit woozy, so we walked a block and a half to the nearby Apple store to look around and drool at the pretty toys.
By that time it was around 4pm, so we decided it was in our best interest to get me to my 7:30pm appointment in the east bay in leisurely fashion, stopping at stores and such along the way. At one mall we hit a Starbucks for more drinks (I was sensible and had an iced decaf nonfat latte with a sugar-free vanilla shot), looked at stuff in a sporting goods store, hit a pet store (I picked up some goodies for Lady), and went to Walmart so
Next we finished the drive to Berkeley, stopping for gas, and then for produce at Berkeley Bowl. This store had apparently once been a bowling alley, but now it's a really cool supermarket. This place has really nice organic and non-organic produce, neat grains, and gorgeous fish. I live a bit far to shlep fish home, but I wound up buying Rainier and bing cherries (the latter, organic, for $0.99/lb!), two bunches of purple asparagus, pears (gorgeous and only $0.69/lb), a Korean melon (I wanted to try one), and some red-fleshed and blue-fleshed potatoes. If I were doing more cooking I'd also have picked up some broccolini.
Next
After Jane's, Warren drove us to IHOP, where he had a BLT and I had blintzes with strawberries (red food with skin and seeds -- yaay!) and an orange-vanilla shake in hopes of knocking myself out. Instead, I wound up taking most of the blintzes home, and I'm only now starting to fade after having taken something to knock me out.
Hopefully I'll find out soon whether the polyp was benign or malignant (and exactly how big it was).