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The Five-Timers Club
Jun. 9th, 2015 03:37 pmI am officially a member, as I had my fifth colonoscopy yesterday! And what an honor, to have achieved this at only 31, having long ago surpassed my father's piddly count of two (at 63 years of age), and closing in on my mother's more impressive six (also 63, family history of colon cancer and polyps). To be fair, though, she started at 40, so she's had 23 years to rack up that number. I did mine in six years. *drops mic*
I did the math, which is depressing. My doctor recommends having a colonoscopy every two years. They generally stop performing them once you hit 75 or so. But that's for colon cancer screening, I guess because they figure the chances of you dying of something ELSE is much higher at that point, so why torture the elderly unnecessarily? Could be there's no limit for Crohn's. So, conservative estimate, assuming I live to be 75 and don't have many more years like this one, where I had two colonoscopies in 3 months for clinical trial purposes, I'm looking at another 44 years of every two years.
That's 22 more colonoscopies. TWENTY-TWO. Conservative estimate.
That seems... unfair.
In other news, y'all know that my dad is a fairly skilled amateur home remodeler/mechanic/handyman. We always joke that he should have his own HGTV show called "Projects Without Permits," since he is not actually licensed to do any of the things he does, but that really only matters because homeowners' insurance can be sort of picky about paying for accidents resulting from unlicensed construction/electrical/plumbing work. But that's only if something goes wrong. Which it never has.
My mom, on the other hand, is very talented at many things, but home repair is not one of them (you should try her lasagna, though!). So their latest project is remodeling their master bathroom. My dad has completely retiled the floor and the shower, installed new fixtures, sink, vanity, etc. My mom's job? Paint the linen closet. The linen closet is a rather tight space, so for this job, she had a little mini paint roller with a matching mini paint tray. I am told it was adorable. I never saw it, for reasons that will soon become clear.
So at one point, my father walks into the bathroom, into what he describes as a scene from The Three Stooges: My mother is standing on a step-ladder, leaning over to reach the back corner of the closet, except that as she leans, the paint tray tilts with her, and so it is spilling paint all down the step-ladder and onto the floor. While bending down to clean up the spilled paint in the narrow space, she bumps against wet walls both in front of and behind her, and now has paint in her hair and on the back of her pants.
She resumes painting. Somehow - and neither one of them could tell you precisely how it happened - she manages to fling the mini paint roller so vigorously that the sponge part flies off the handle and directly into a hole in the wall, which my father had made in order to access the water pipes for the shower. So my mother, already covered in paint, is now sticking her entire arm into this hole in the wall in an effort to retrieve the paint roller.
Dad: "You're going to get stuck."
The paint roller is never recovered.
Later: My parents have come to visit for my colonoscopy, and my mother has decided that I need plants on my balcony. She loves flowers, and rather enjoys gardening, so I let her do her thing, even though there is a 90% chance I will kill them within a week. My father and I are watching with bemusement as my mother sits out on the balcony, digging around in a flower pot with a kitchen spoon, because $11 was too much to pay for a shovel at Home Depot, and of course I don't have one. Gardening is too dirty. Which I say, out loud, and my mother mocks me for it.
And then she accidentally flings dirt out of the pot and all over her shoes. Me: "I rest my case."
When she's finished her planting - and her side of the balcony is smeared with mud - she realizes she can't come in the house without taking off her shoes because she'll track dirt in, but she can't untie her shoes until she's washed her hands because her hands are caked with mud. Me: "Would you like some wet wipes?" Mom: "Shut up. And yes."
Once she's got most of the dirt off her hands, she realizes she forgot to replace the garden flag in one of the planters. The garden flagpole is tethered to the balcony railing, because it gets super windy up there on the 6th floor, so sticking it back in the planter involves some maneuvering. My mother's solution is to tip the planter sideways and slide it under the flagpole's bottom prongs. Immediately, it tips too far and more dirt spills out onto the balcony. My mother looks at her hands, looks at the dirt, says, "Oh for God's sake!" and starts picking it up by the handful and tossing it back in the pot.
Dad: "What'd I tell you? Three Stooges." Me: "More wet wipes?" :D
I did the math, which is depressing. My doctor recommends having a colonoscopy every two years. They generally stop performing them once you hit 75 or so. But that's for colon cancer screening, I guess because they figure the chances of you dying of something ELSE is much higher at that point, so why torture the elderly unnecessarily? Could be there's no limit for Crohn's. So, conservative estimate, assuming I live to be 75 and don't have many more years like this one, where I had two colonoscopies in 3 months for clinical trial purposes, I'm looking at another 44 years of every two years.
That's 22 more colonoscopies. TWENTY-TWO. Conservative estimate.
That seems... unfair.
In other news, y'all know that my dad is a fairly skilled amateur home remodeler/mechanic/handyman. We always joke that he should have his own HGTV show called "Projects Without Permits," since he is not actually licensed to do any of the things he does, but that really only matters because homeowners' insurance can be sort of picky about paying for accidents resulting from unlicensed construction/electrical/plumbing work. But that's only if something goes wrong. Which it never has.
My mom, on the other hand, is very talented at many things, but home repair is not one of them (you should try her lasagna, though!). So their latest project is remodeling their master bathroom. My dad has completely retiled the floor and the shower, installed new fixtures, sink, vanity, etc. My mom's job? Paint the linen closet. The linen closet is a rather tight space, so for this job, she had a little mini paint roller with a matching mini paint tray. I am told it was adorable. I never saw it, for reasons that will soon become clear.
So at one point, my father walks into the bathroom, into what he describes as a scene from The Three Stooges: My mother is standing on a step-ladder, leaning over to reach the back corner of the closet, except that as she leans, the paint tray tilts with her, and so it is spilling paint all down the step-ladder and onto the floor. While bending down to clean up the spilled paint in the narrow space, she bumps against wet walls both in front of and behind her, and now has paint in her hair and on the back of her pants.
She resumes painting. Somehow - and neither one of them could tell you precisely how it happened - she manages to fling the mini paint roller so vigorously that the sponge part flies off the handle and directly into a hole in the wall, which my father had made in order to access the water pipes for the shower. So my mother, already covered in paint, is now sticking her entire arm into this hole in the wall in an effort to retrieve the paint roller.
Dad: "You're going to get stuck."
The paint roller is never recovered.
Later: My parents have come to visit for my colonoscopy, and my mother has decided that I need plants on my balcony. She loves flowers, and rather enjoys gardening, so I let her do her thing, even though there is a 90% chance I will kill them within a week. My father and I are watching with bemusement as my mother sits out on the balcony, digging around in a flower pot with a kitchen spoon, because $11 was too much to pay for a shovel at Home Depot, and of course I don't have one. Gardening is too dirty. Which I say, out loud, and my mother mocks me for it.
And then she accidentally flings dirt out of the pot and all over her shoes. Me: "I rest my case."
When she's finished her planting - and her side of the balcony is smeared with mud - she realizes she can't come in the house without taking off her shoes because she'll track dirt in, but she can't untie her shoes until she's washed her hands because her hands are caked with mud. Me: "Would you like some wet wipes?" Mom: "Shut up. And yes."
Once she's got most of the dirt off her hands, she realizes she forgot to replace the garden flag in one of the planters. The garden flagpole is tethered to the balcony railing, because it gets super windy up there on the 6th floor, so sticking it back in the planter involves some maneuvering. My mother's solution is to tip the planter sideways and slide it under the flagpole's bottom prongs. Immediately, it tips too far and more dirt spills out onto the balcony. My mother looks at her hands, looks at the dirt, says, "Oh for God's sake!" and starts picking it up by the handful and tossing it back in the pot.
Dad: "What'd I tell you? Three Stooges." Me: "More wet wipes?" :D
