Update of my world

Its been a hell of a week! Truth be told I had a lot of fear about this week. But it ended up being unnecessary and a bit invalid.

Sunday I prepared for Monday's colonoscopy. Let me tell you what the prep entails. I was only allowed to "eat" liquids Sunday. I had gone shopping Saturday and bought some great gatorade flavors and plenty of Popsicles to eat as well as Jello cups. Delicious. At 6 pm Sunday I began drinking 3 of the 4 liters of a solution that basically tasted like slimy, flat Sprite. Plugging my nose and quickly chugging the mixture was the only way I managed to not gag. I was instructed to wait 10-15 minutes between drinking each glass of the mixture. 3 liters of this mixture may not sound like a lot but I assure you it was torture. After 4 of the 8 glasses I attempted to consume glass 5. Not even a minute after I finished glass 5 I threw up. And I was consumed with worry that I'd dispelled all that I'd spent the last hour drinking. And that now I wouldn't be able to cleanse my intestines and the procedure would need to be rescheduled. After calming myself I drank the remaining 3 glasses. For the next 5 hours I basically lived on the toilet. The silver lining to me was that at least I wasn't throwing up.

Monday morning I awoke at 4 am to drink the remaining liter of mixture. This was 2 1/2 glasses. I finished 2 glasses and literally could not stomach the last 1/2 glass. I was pretty much self assured from all my time in the bathroom that I'd cleansed my system sufficiently and there was no chance I would need to reschedule the procedure. I happily poured the last 1/2 glass down the drain.

At the hospital, the staff was awesome! Not that I recommend you spend copious amounts of time there, but should you require time in the hospital I hope you are a patient at the fabulous University of Utah Hospital.

I was scheduled at 7:15 to check in and my procedure was at 8am. The colonoscopy was complete and I was walking out to the car by 8:45am. I spent the rest of the morning sleeping. Consider it an after effect of a combination of a terrible previous night's sleep and the residual narcotics from being put to sleep for the colonoscopy.

It was a beautiful pre-Spring day. I ate my lunch on the front porch and sat in the warmth for 2 hours. It was the best reward I could consider for what I'd just endured the previous 18 hours.

Late in the evening my sister Cylvia and my sister-in-law Stephani arrived. They were coming to visit my brother who should be heading back to Washington between now and September of this year.

Its no secret I'm not very close with my family. Dare I say the visit from my sisters was a bigger dread to me than the colonoscopy. Safe to now say, I enjoyed their visit and was honestly sad to see them leave this morning.

The highlight of their visit was alone time I had with Cylvia over dinner Wednesday night. In the last 2 1/2 years since she last lived with me she has become quite the fantastic boring adult. This is our joke and a boring adult really is a fantastic thing in our worlds. She surprised me in our conversation with her patience and her expressiveness. She has learned to communicate. And to apologize. She has grown up a lot the last couple years and I am so proud of her!!

The results of the colonoscopy showed an inflamed portion of intestine opposite of where I have been having pain. Samples of the clean areas and the inflamed areas of my intestine were sent for biopsy and I'll know more next week.

All the stomach pain has caused me to stop running the last month. It was essentially impossible to run with constant pain in my gut and the continual threat of diarrhea coming on. Running seemed to only speed up how fast things exited my bowels. Its been a crappy few months. Pun intended. Its very hard to deal with not feeling well and pain and trying to train. I'm not sure the April 1/2 marathon is still an option right now. I'm looking to one in June or July and hope to be able to get training again soon. I really want to run and do a 1/2 marathon this year, but most importantly I'm just looking forward to feeling good again.