Life - After The Hospital

I realized today that I haven't ridden my bike in 5 or 6 days, not since sometime last week. It didn't even dawn on me that I was missing all this riding. I'd been exhausted from driving for hours and hours both on Saturday and Sunday, standing outside all day Sunday, and then, after recovering Monday, spending yesterday and today focusing on a liquid cleansing diet in prep for a colonoscopy.

That went well, thankfully.

Not eating for a day (but getting liquid calories) wasn't bad, but not eating any calories (except a couple gulps of Gatorade) for a whole day made me tired and cold. Early in the afternoon I got settled into the nice hospital bed, got an IV in my hand (Al smiled and told me, "You did good. Wimpy, but good."), signed a final form with my IV'ed hand, and then got wheeled into the procedure room.

We were waiting for me to sign one more form and then they'd take my glasses away and start the procedure. The doctor rolled in and, after the nurses told him about the final consent form, he announced that I'd signed it earlier (I did?). They did something with my hand, made it feel tight and swollen, enough that I winced.

A nurse came over and took my glasses away.

Then she turned around, came back, and put them back on.

I wondered if maybe I needed to sign one more thing. But there were a lot of smiling faces and a sense of relaxation in the room.

"You're all done! You did great!"

Huh? What?

"You're all set!"

My mind took a second to figure this out. Then I realized that perhaps they were done. I asked what time it was.

It about an hour after the nurse took my glasses away.

Oh.

Last time I came out of such a state, I remembered almost nothing except that I didn't remember anything except the doctor saying "You won't remember anything I tell you". So I tried desperately hard to remember things. Al. Maggie. Nancy.

Yep, memory still worked.

No polyps (last time they found one). Five years until the next one. I told my doctor he seemed more like a "Hey dude" kind of person than a "Hey Doctor". He wished me luck with transitioning my life from a full time cyclist to a full time something else. I told him some story... and now I have no idea what I said to him. Hm. Hopefully it wasn't bad.

Okay, so parts of my memory are gone.

The missus came and picked me up and I had my first meal of the day. I was a bit dazed, to the point that she asked if I was okay. I guess this knock out drug doesn't clear out all at once. Among other things I can't do is make any decisions (it says so in my discharge papers) so I have a couple big things to do that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Two of them are biggies, and they both sort of got underway on my liquid prep day (Tuesday). In fact, I was on the phone constantly for a few hours on Tuesday, surprising myself at how ungrumpy I sounded. I just wanted to lay down and sleep but my phone kept ringing, even the home line (which never rings since we don't give out that number). Tomorrow I'll be able to address them again, in a proper state of mind. Apparently blogging under the influence is not forbidden so I decided to write tonight.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to get on the bike.