Fanfare

How cute is it that Josh and Treat can still spend a good hour playing Tanks on the Wii? As retro as they claim the system to be with its 10-year-old graphics, there they are in the living room targeting and destroying tiny little tanks in a virtual maze like they have since they were 11. "I only wish I could have this as my ringtone!" Josh said about the trumpet fanfare that announces each new level, and he was only being half ironic.

Tortilla Espanola

I picked up our vegetable share bright and early this morning; it was before 8 when I repacked the contents of the produce box into a reusable bag and brought it home. Once in our kitchen and confronted with eggs, potatoes, and onions, there was really only one thing to do.

Back when I was in college, I had an acquaintance from my job in the dining hall who had done a semester in Spain. Early one Sunday morning, when we were both working brunch, but before most students were even awake, she took advantage of the slow time to make me breakfast. "This sounds weird, but it's really delicious," she said as she presented me with a potato omelet. Given the pre-scrambled eggs and frozen hash browns she had to work with, it was pretty good.

I thought of her six years later when I was in Spain visiting my sister, who was also doing a semester abroad there. Then we enjoyed Tortilla Espanola everywhere we went. As one of the most popular tapas dishes in the country, you can order it in most places for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. At the time, I was cooking professionally, and so we purchased a cookbook, in Spanish of course, so that I could authentically recreate all the foods we loved-- tortilla, gazpacho, and fried calamari.

And indeed, for years, those dishes were in heavy rotation at our house: tortilla for brunch, gazpacho for lunch, calamari for an hors-d'oeuvre before dinner. The key to all of them was olive oil, and plenty of it. My friend from college never had a chance, because I doubt there was a drop of olive oil to be had in that pantry.

Not so in my kitchen-- even though it has probably been 10 years or more since the last time I made it, this morning I poured a generous amount of olive oil into my skillet and proceeded to poach a pound of new potatoes and some baby onions until they were tender. In the mean time I scrambled up six eggs that couldn't have been more than 24 hours away from their hens, and when the veggies were ready I strained and added them directly to the eggs. Oh that lovely olive oil will be delicious in other things, but for the little bit I drizzled back in the skillet before dumping the egg-potato-onion mixture in, too.

In five minutes my tortilla was golden brown on the bottom, and so just like the long-ago cookbook directed, I flipped it onto a plate and slid it back into the pan to finish. A few minutes later it was ready, but I let it cool to room temperature before slicing it into wedges and enjoying it with a strong cup of coffee, just like in Spain.

Wake Up Call

For at least 25 years, I have risen to the sound of NPR's morning news show on the radio. What can I say? I like being informed by intelligent people with interesting voices as I get ready for the day. That's why it's so alarming that lately the sound of Morning Edition puts me right back to sleep-- it seems like it's all more of the same old news reported in a soothing drone.

Maybe I'll have to switch to Fox News. That might get a rise out of me!

Epilogue: I Scope with Dope

Eighteen years later, we arrived right on time for my fourth colonoscopy yesterday morning, but Dr. H was running, excuse the pun, a little behind. Heidi was allowed to wait with me right up until the time they wheeled me back, and the staff at the GI Unit could not have been any nicer. Without exception, though, they all seemed a little shocked about my intention to go through without any sedative.

"I don't want to influence you," one nurse said, "but these are reallllly good drugs. You're asleep in literally 10 seconds and awake 10 minutes after they're done."

"But what about side effects?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Most people tell me it's like the most refreshing nap ever."

Everyone was like that-- super respectful of my wishes, but very clear that the anesthesia they use today was excellent.

I had never been put under for anything, and I couldn't imagine it, but the last colonoscopy I'd had was a little ouchy at the end. I endured the cramps through gritted teeth, virtuous in the knowledge that I would be dressed and ready to go in a few minutes.

"But Trace," my sister once told me, "if you take the drugs, you don't care if you can't leave right away."

"Well," I told my nurse as he started the IV, "I guess I should have something to compare. I've decided I'll go with the anesthesia."

He nodded. "It makes it easier for the doctor," he said, "if he doesn't have to worry about hurting you."

Just then the anesthesia nurse came in. "You might feel a little burn at the site," she said, "but you'll be asleep in 10 seconds."

I didn't believe it. I watched as she pushed the white fluid from her syringe into the line. (We fondly call it 'milk of amnesia' the other nurse had told me.) I closed my eyes; there was no heat, just a little roaring in my ears and then stars in the dark.

The next thing I heard was, "Everything went great!" and they were wheeling me to a recovery cubicle. And 20 minutes later? I was dressed and on my way, feeling like I'd had the best nap ever.

Now that is a good drug!

Procedure: Part IV

What is phosphos soda, anyway? The night before my procedure I drank four shots of the bitter, salty stuff, at twenty-minute intervals, followed by 32-ounce water chasers. As bad as it was, the taste was not the worst of it. It wasn’t long before any remaining liquid from the past two days was decisively evacuated, and I wished that I’d stayed away from that spicy broth.

Now, watching on TV, I saw just how clean and empty my bowels were. Rippling with peristalsis, the walls of my colon glowed yellow, a fine network of greenish-blue veins visible below the surface. Dr. H narrated our progress as we went, stopping a few minutes in to pinch a little polyp with the forceps. He would send it to the lab for biopsy, but even if it was pre-cancerous, he assured me that it was of no concern. As the serrated teeth of the little alligator-like instrument chewed away at the tiny bump, it bled, bright red washing down the sides of the tunnel, but I couldn’t feel it; there are no nerves inside our intestines. We moved on, and in a moment reached a tight turn. “I’m going to blow some air here to straighten it out,” he told me, “you might feel a little pressure.”

Inflating your intestines turns out to be rather painful, which is why they invented beano and gas-x. I ground my teeth, willing my recalcitrant gut to unbend and let the colonoscopy continue. Finally it opened up like a lazy windsock in a light breeze, and the cramping disappeared. After that, it was a straight shot all the way to my appendix, which resembled Pinocchio’s nose. That was the end of the line, and, with the exception of that one little polyp, there was nothing. The trip out was much quicker, and a lot like watching a tape of what I’d just seen in rewind. One last quick view of my bare butt, and it was all over. “You did great,” Dr. H told me. “See you in three years.”

Back in my recovery cubicle, I got dressed. Yet another nurse was startled that I was all ready to go when she came in to check on me. Before I was discharged, she gave me a run down of what I might expect over the course of the day, “But don’t worry,” she assured me, “it’s fresh air.”

Procedure: Part III

Finally, after a few questions and a rectal exam, my GP wrote a referral for a gastroenterologist and ordered some blood work. She said everything seemed normal to her, but you couldn’t take any chances with my family history. The gastro guy, Dr. H., was highly recommended, though; “He’s very gentle.” When I saw him ten days later, he told me that the results of all my labs were normal, but a colonoscopy was indicated, anyway. It would be another two-and-a-half weeks before he could fit me in.

A week before I was finally going to get scoped and find out once and for all whether there was anything to worry about, the dark red color appeared again. I examined it closely. It looked suspiciously like the beets I had eaten for dinner the evening before. When I was growing up, my mother never served us beets; I don’t think she likes them. A month or so ago, I’d been to dinner at a friend’s home, and he had served a delicious salad with roasted beets, haricots vertes, and goat cheese. It was so tasty, in fact, that I had made the salad myself, just last night. Hmmm, I wondered. How thoroughly do we digest beets anyway?

In my mind, the mystery was solved, but the colonoscopy was still on the calendar. Two days before it, the preparation began, a clear liquid diet. How bad can that be? I thought. There are many clear liquids, and I was totally up for the challenge. For example, I strained Thai hot and sour soup as a much more flavorful alternative to plain chicken broth, and wine is definitely clear, but after a couple of meals, I found out that the main problem with clear liquids is that they are not satisfying. I wanted solid food. Forty-eight hours on a liquid diet would have been bad enough, but the clear liquids are really only to ease the second part of the preparation: the cleanse.

Procedure: Part II

The next day I made an appointment with my general practitioner. The earliest she could see me was a couple of weeks away. This was in the days before google even existed, much less had become a verb. I used my dial-up service to conduct some internet research. It was limited, but all I read pointed to the same thing. In the absence of trauma, the most likely explanation was some stage of colon cancer. I was not surprised. My father had died of that disease ten years before; I knew I was at risk.

As the days passed, I studied the toilet every time I had a bowel movement, and I was relieved to see no tint to the water. I hoped it was a false alarm, but I knew that the amount of blood I had seen was a possible indicator that anything wrong could be quite advanced.

Confronted by my own mortality, it was hard not to be a little morbid sometimes. Songs on the radio seemed like excellent choices for a memorial service, especially I Will Remember You by Sarah MacLachlan and I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly. “And she planned it herself?” my mourners would marvel. “Wow, I just couldn’t have done it.” It was hard not to be optimistic, too, to be sure it was nothing, mostly because something like that couldn’t happen to me, and plus, I was only 35.

The two weeks crawled by. I stayed busy doing crossword puzzles. I couldn’t get enough of them; there was something soothing about challenges with definite answers. I had decided not to tell my family, because I didn’t want them to worry. I didn’t mention it at work; it seemed a little too personal, and D and I didn’t really talk about it either, although later, she told me that she wrote a long list of all the things that she wouldn’t miss about me.

I’m sure that list came in handy a few months later when we broke up.