Colonoscopy - Second Edition. What?!!! it's that time again already???

       

Either this is my colon or my semi-colon or THE BLOB

          I never got the chance to write about the first edition since I wasn't blogging yet five years ago, but time does fly when you're not eagerly anticipating another visit to the gastroenterologist knowing what's going to come up next. In this case, a tube that comes up from under and inside your body. But we do what we must because of our family history. Oh, the horrors of getting old: high blood pressure from my father, colon cancer from my mother, and anxiety from who knows where.
          It's has been five years since I had the first de-virginization of my rear end and since then, my mother had died of colon cancer. So it is a necessity for me to have this procedure done every five years instead of the usual ten years. Shall I call this de-virginization part 2 even though that's not technically possible? Call it what you may but it still involves inserting an endoscope up where the sun don't shine and in my mind it feels like I'm going to be violated. Perhaps that's why it's called an ENDoscope. And to think that they blow air inside your intestines and shine a light where I previously said "the sun don't shine", so the doctor can see what he is doing. Good thing I'm unconscious through all that, thanks to Michael Jackson's sleeping drug of choice - Propofol.
          Shall we backtrack a little bit though? Because it's not just a matter of going directly to being violated, you have to prepare for it first. It's the so-called dreaded PREP. For all of you who have gone through this, you already know what it's like: a clear liquid diet the day before the colonoscopy (Wait, did you say clear liquid diet? Does white wine or vodka count?), drinking a liter of an electrolyte concoction in the evening, in my case it was something called MoviPrep,  which after you finish, you are primed for BLAST OFF! The purgative literally blasts off whatever you have hiding in the nooks and crannies of your chitterlings and sends it down the drain in several installments. You might as well keep your pants and undies off for the duration to save time between toilet visits so you don't accidentally soil yourself. Because just when you think you had ejected everything, another spasm makes you sprint faster than a leopard in the savanna, back to the crapper. Then after you exhaust yourself with all the sprinting, you try to get some sleep before the alarm wakes you up at 4:30 in the morning so you can repeat the electrolyte drinking process and subsequent bathroom dashes all over again. To paraphrase Dave Barry: it's as if you are ejecting whatever you might have eaten tomorrow. Never in the annals of mankind has anyone used so much toilet paper as I have in such a short period of time.

MoviPrep Blast Off Drink

          Now for the boring and mundane stuff. It was time to go to the surgery center. Five years ago, I had my colonoscopy at Lakewood Regional Medical Center which was three miles from home, but this time, due to the dictates of the insurance company, I had to travel more than 15 miles to Los Alamitos to a building called the Reagan Street Surgery Center, which is located on, um... Reagan Street, just a stone's throw away from Los Alamitos Medical Center. Last time, my Auntie Beth who used to live in Long Beach, drove me to and from the hospital, but she has since moved to the Temecula area. So I had to find someone to drive me, or take a cab. With a taxi, it would have cost more than $80 round trip with tips. I called the insurance company, my gastroenterologist, the surgery center, and my internist to find out if they had some kind of free or affordable shuttle service for patients. Alas, they had none. My last resort would have been to call my Uncle and Aunt from Cerritos and ask if they could drive me. But since they are now in their 70's, I hesitated. Instead I posted my dilemma on FACEBOOK (hey, that's what social networking is all about, isn't it?), offering $40 to take me to and from the surgery center, using my stick shift car or theirs, and they didn't have to wait while my procedure was being done. Then I can call them whenever I was ready to go home. I didn't expect very much from it, but within minutes, my cousin Jeanette, who works in L.A. but lives in Thousand Oaks, offered to adjust her work schedule and drive me. I was hoping for someone closer to Long Beach who would not be inconvenienced too much, so I declined her generous offer. A couple of hours later, a friend from my running club (AREC), sent me a Facebook email message offering to drive me. Since Nancy is a real estate agent, she said she could also adjust her schedule. After exchanging a few messages, I took her up on her offer, with the promise of buying her and her husband Johan, a good bottle of wine. Believe me, I don't know good wine from bad, and Nancy used to sell wine before she went to real estate, so I had to ask another friend of hers - Bennett, who works at the Wine Country in the city of Signal Hill, what he thought Nancy would like. After a few suggestions at the store, I picked out a French red. I don't know if it's good, but I hope Nancy and Johan will enjoy it. Nancy, thanks so much again for driving me. You are a Godsend :)
          So after verifying my address and destination, Nancy picked me up and dropped me off at the surgery center. I signed in, signed a few consent forms and was sent to the GI lab in a few minutes. I was asked to change into a gown, then this Filipina nurse who also happened to have graduated from my alma mater (University of the Philippines), and whose husband is from Zamboanga City, inserted an IV in my right arm and hooked me up to a blood pressure machine. Well, it seemed like taking my blood pressure medication and an anxiety pill earlier(which were the only solids I was allowed to take) kept my blood pressure within normal limits. Thank goodness for that because my BP usually goes sky high when I'm anxious. Then another nurse and the anesthesiologist introduced themselves, and in short time, my bed was wheeled into the surgery area. Dr. Weiss asked me if I was ready and I responded - " well, I'm here", and he said - "so am I". I guess we were both ready. I was asked to turn on my left side, then the anesthesiologist placed an oxygen mask on my face and told me to breath deeply. All I can remember was taking two or three breathes, and then my name being called to wake me up. And just like that, the violation, I mean the examination was over. Over and done with for another five years. I asked Dr. Weiss if a video of the procedure was available, but he said the computers they had didn't have enough storage. I also asked him about withdrawal time or how long he takes to slowly withdraw the endoscope while examining the length of the colon (the slower, the better). He said that time was a good criteria for doctors who were new at doing colonoscopies. Having done more than 30,000 of them, he said he already knows what exactly to look for. My preliminary results indicated: no polyps, no cancer. Yipee! As a consolation prize, they gave me a photocopy of the pictures they took of my colon and some apple juice. Then they called Nancy to pick me up. She actually had to go upstairs to where I was and sign my discharge instructions so the staff was certain that I wasn't driving myself. After Nancy dropped me off at home, my wobbly legs managed to take me back to my condo without falling or passing out.

Preliminary Results

          I had been without solid food for almost 40 hours by then. Why so long? Well, starting at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, I was on clear liquid diet until the evening, then nothing to eat or drink at all after that except the second dose of MoviPrep on Thursday morning. Then the procedure was done at 1:30 p.m. and I was back home at 4 p.m. and that was when I had some noodle soup. So if the Propofol hasn't clouded my brain so much, that adds up to 40 hours of no solid food. Right? Right?!
          I followed the discharge instructions as closely as possible, namely: no driving, no alcohol (darn it!), and no vigorous exercise for 24 hours after the procedure. The next day, I got a follow up call from Jean, the Filipino nurse, to find out how I was doing and I said everything went well and that I already mailed the feedback form that came with my discharge instructions. Of course, I checked Excellent in all categories. My question is - was that colonoscopy procedure really done on me? Because my butt doesn't even hurt and I don't even feel violated!
          For a more humorous account about colonoscopies, I present Dave Barry's version:   http://www.miamiherald.com/2009/02/11/v-fullstory/427603/dave-barry-a-journey-into-my-colon.html

A Missed High School Reunion and Why?

I really wanted to go to my Notre Dame High School reunion but dearth of funds prevented me from doing so. In the two weeks prior to the event, I was quietly hoping to win the lottery and make a surprise appearance, but that dream never happened. Imagine me showing up unannounced at my mother’s doorstep. She probably wouldn’t have believed it was me. Let’s see, here is what it all boiled down to. It would have cost about  $1,200 for a round trip ticket to and from Los Angeles to Manila to Zamboanga. Add a couple more grand to that for expenses and money for mom, well, that just made it unaffordable based on my income. Even if I didn’t have to pay the mortgage, bills, and other living expenses, that amount would have taken three months of work to earn. If I was an RN, half a month would have been enough (saying that with envy). I should have chosen a better major in college if I was able to predict then where I would end up now. Well, that’s life. While I was contemplating this, I didn’t even know if my passport was current or already expired so I better dig it out and check (it doesn’t expire until February 2015). I’d better start saving a little bit here and there starting now so hopefully I would have adequate funds in a couple of years for the next reunion which would be our 40^th anniversary. I’m not that old, am I?

 Some of you already know why I haven’t been able to save the last two years. I’ve been searching for an alternative aerobic exercise to running and had bought several equipment starting from a treadmill, an elliptical machine, a road bike, and a spinning bike. In anticipation of my worsening ankle tendons, I had to find a replacement activity the satisfy my daily exercise needs and the search for an endorphin high. But these machines cost a lot of money, ergo, no savings to speak of for two years. Add to that the dental surgery with sleep anesthesia the last couple of years and  partial dentures afterwards, I’m surprised I’m not in the red today.

So there you go my dear classmates. In the end it was all a dollars and cents issue or the lack thereof. Sorry to have missed joining you in the joyous occasion especially when the men were woefully underrepresented. You don’t know how envious I am of all of you who could make it there. I did enjoy looking at all the pictures you posted and the chats we had on Facebook regarding all the activities before and after the event. I don’t know how my social anxiety would have fared had I been there, but I’m sure it would have been manageable within a few minutes of seeing you all again after 38 years. I pray we shall meet again at our 40^th anniversary. More power to the Notre Dame High School Class of 1973! Hail, Hail to Notre Dame!

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Nangka-Nangka Questions Answered

galunggong or tamarung

After I posted the blog regarding Nangka-Nangka (a house of ill repute in our small town) in a closed Facebook group of my high school classmates, it was barraged with comments and answers. Within the first hour, there were already 88 comments.  So let me see if I can digest all this information in as little space as possible. Here are some information I gathered from my classmates in Facebook.

First, I was mistaken about the location. Famy said it was in the middle of Martirez St. in Upper San Raymundo district, and not past the Philippine Constabulary barracks which I thought. That immediately tells you how much I know or better still, don’t know about the place.

The second piece of information was that it was a house and in front of this house was a Nangka (jackfruit) tree, thus the name of the place.

Third, the women there were called Tamarungs, as Froebel reminded us. Well, Tamarung is a kind of cheap fish (galunggong in the Filipino language) which sometimes causes your tongue to itch. The correlation being, if you availed of the services of the women in Nangka-Nangka and you didn’t wear protection, you might develop an itch in your nether regions, or worse, a drip. Wait, maybe those two come hand in hand.

Here is a paraphrase of what Soraya told me. “I remember (in elementary school) when a group of 3 or 4 heavily made up girls with full red lipstick would walk in front of our house and the tricycle drivers would yell “tamarung!”. I asked my grandma why they were called tamarung and she said because they were bad girls from Nangka-Nangka. What is Nangka-Nangka and why is it called so? Because that place has a jackfruit tree on the pathway leading to the house.”

Fourth, per Famy, Nangka-Nangka has ceased to exist since the martial law days of the 70’s.

Several pieces of good information continued to come from Froebel who seems to be an expert on the subject, which brings us to number five. The tamarungs had competition in town! They were sea gypsies from the town of Pangutaran, who even preceded the tamarungs from the town of Jolo in that kind of business. Here is a direct quote from Froebel, “mostly boys back then went for the 'sea gypsies' rather than the girls in nangka-nangka. It’s because they are brunette..slim..young and they are very salty (sultry) :D” 

sea gypsies

Here’s more info from Soraya: the people of Jolo (called Tausugs), never bought tamarung fish because there were so many good variety of other fish to choose from the market, thus the tamarung were usually left to rot. Which I guess is what happened to your genital areas after you went to see the tamarung women.

And one last item from our prolific informant, Froebel. He says, “Back in the day (early 70's)...when I was in my teens, I hung out occasionally and sometimes on weekends at my uncle's house in Upper San Raymundo. Their house stood  right by the corner of the alley going to Nangka-Nangka and must have been 4 houses away from the nangka tree. There I listened to the legends, stories, gossips back in the day. According to the older people, when you visit Nangka-Nangka, you can negotiate with the tamarung about their prize range. With an older tamarung, you pay 10-15, sometimes 20 pesos. Younger ones will cost you double. But if you're short of cash, go there late at night (past 12 a.m.) and prizes can go down to 5 pesos guaranteed. Just like going to the movies (last full show), it’s cheap according to them. These tamarungs were local, pure-bred Tausug.” (*side note – at the time 4 pesos = 1 US dollar*)  Froebel adds, “When it gets slow in Nangka-Nangka, you can see the tamarungs heading West towards the docks. There they met with their no.1 rivals - the sea gypsies. Oh, talking about the sea gypsy girls, I remember a gypsy named Lily-Ann. she was a BO DEREK look-alike (from Bus-Bus district).If only she braided her hair like BO, it could have been her, only saltier!” 

(I wonder if there was some kind of Sharks and Jets feud between those two groups ala West Side Story…)

So there you go folks! Everything you’ve ever (or maybe never) wanted to know about Nangka-Nangka and its resident tamarungs.

Which brings us to the second part of this blog. We now know that Nangka-Nangka is defunct. My classmates and I were batting ideas around about restarting the business in our town. After all there was no competition to speak of. Prior to this, a couple of guys talked about hunting for buried Japanese treasure, but restarting Nangka-Nangka would be more feasible. This time we would plant a durian tree at the pathway and call the place, what else? Durian Durian of course! Please, you can look up durian on the internet yourself, can’t you? 

 Famy mentioned that this could be a very lucrative business because of the presence of U.S. Marines in the area (they are there to train local troops). Salma inquired as to who would like to volunteer to be the Mama San of the place, while Soraya said a feasibility study must be done first. I said we should name the place - Durian Durian: A Notre Dame Alumni Cooperative – brought to you by Batch ’73. It was suggested that Famy should have a large advertising banner placed in town. Business partners from our batch would have included nurses and health clinic workers (free condoms and AIDS tests!), doctors (free consultations and treatments for STD’s!), a banker, a dean of computer studies, a mental health worker (me!), and other venture capitalists.

Well everyone, it sounds like a plan so let’s get the ball rolling, get the show on the road, get it kickstarted, and get the men back on the Tamarung saddle!

*DISCLAIMER. Part two of this blogpost was not intended to be a serious discussion of starting a prostitution business. My classmates and I were only joking around with our posts on Facebook and we were all having fun with how the conversation went. Besides, if Mother Superior ever read what we talked about, she surely would have given each of us 10 slaps of the ruler on the palms of our hands if she didn’t get apoplexy first. Thanks for playing along.

I would never have been able to compile this information without the help of my partners in crime, whose expertise and knowledge of the subject matter, I’m eternally grateful for. Thanks to Froebel, Famy, Soraya, Ric, Jane, Leonie, the director, producer, screenwriter, makeup artist, waterboy, etc., etc., etc… But most of all, thanks to the Tamarungs of Nangka-Nangka for making this blogpost possible.

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Facebook Discussions About High School

Former classmates from our little town of Jolo (in the province of Sulu in the Philippines), and I have been having a discussion on Facebook about happenings in our lives during those days. Even though I say classmates, it wasn’t true in the real sense of the word because we were divided by great distance into the Notre Dame Girl’s Department run by the Dominican Sisters, and Notre Dame Boy’s Department, managed by the Marist Brothers. The discussions centered on secrets people had in high school regarding crushes, admirers, real or imagined relationships, and such. It’s so funny at our age to be pondering these things (we are all in our mid 50’s). Could that mean that we are still young at heart despite our chronological ages? So far, few if any have spilled the beans. Some of these supposed secrets were already known back then but they were never overt. Apparently, a few people knew more about them than others. Those who were in the loop are beginning to drop hints about what purportedly happened. Most, including me were either innocent, utterly clueless, or just lived  sheltered lives under the constant supervision of conservative and very strict parents.

So that got me digging into the deep recesses of my mind to try to remember what I did in high school and why I wasn’t socially active (and still not to this day). Well, I was more involved in sports back then. As a freshman, I played basketball, then learned tennis in my sophomore year, broke my left ankle in a motorcycle accident as a junior, then it was back to tennis as a senior. A lot of my free time was spent at the Bureau of Public Highways tennis court initially, then Jolo Tennis Club, and at the Notre Dame gymnasium tennis courts. In between, there was hunting birds with my cousin (he shot the birds with his BB gun and his maid dressed and cooked them. We even ate a bat and a kingfisher once). There was also table tennis at the house of one of our teachers (Mr. Villanueva) on some weekends. All those physical activities left me no time to be socially involved with male peers or girls. That, and the aforementioned constant supervision of conservative and very strict parents. But then again, that may be just be my reserved personality. My younger brother turned out socially much better under the same parentage after all. By the way, nowadays I socialize better while running. There is something about opening up my sweat glands that make me open up my vocal cords too.

Addendum 8/10/11 @ 400 P.M.: I was not with the boy’s department students taking the jeepneys  from Plaza Rizal to Gandasuli because I usually hitched a ride with the Nangquils  whose father was the district engineer, from their house in BPH. This made miss admiring the PYT’s from the girl’s department while the jeeps circled the plaza.

So my dear classmates who by chance happen to read this -  sorry for not having any juicy secrets to divulge to you, however I’m intrigued to hear about yours. I can only offer you this Beatles song:

Listen,
Do you want to know a secret?,
Do you promise not to tell?, whoa oh, oh.

Closer,
Let me whisper in your ear,
Say the words you long to hear,
I'm in love with you.

p.s. Diana A. in early high school and Ohara N. much later, and one other who happens to be on Facebook who shall remain nameless… I started to type in their last names but I decided otherwise to protect the good names of the innocent. Thanks for letting me share.

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End of March 2011 Random Thoughts

Facebook and other social networking sites are not accessible through our company’s Wi-Fi or LAN connections (well, maybe Friendster is not banned, but who uses that nowadays anymore?). However, while messing around with MSN Live Messenger, I discovered that you can see updates, make comments, and otherwise do everything else you do at the Facebook website. Psst, don’t tell our IT department or they might block that too. Incidentally, I just discovered that by responding to email notifications from Facebook, you can post comments that way too. I guess this is especially helpful when certain websites are blocked by your workplace network. . Well, excuse me, but I’m a late learner.

                After doing long walks the past couple of weeks, I mounted the treadmill to do a jog a few days ago and when I woke up the next day, my hips and lower back were very, very sore. It was the kind of soreness I used to ignore because I tolerated it better, and knowing that it would pass in a couple of days. This time I was more aware of it. How about this: when I stay immobile for long periods of time, I have to grunt or groan when I finally move. Do you think the post run soreness and the groaning has something to do with age? No doubt about it!

                I was watching a Korean soccer movie based in East Timor (A Barefoot Dream). Halfway through, I had to Google the country because I didn’t know anything about it at all. One of the websites was the CIA website which enlightened me on East Timor’s violent recent past. Surprisingly, a lot of the words in their language is strikingly very similar to my native dialect of Tausug in the Philippines. After all they are both Malay- based languages. The country also has a lot of Hispanic sounding names due to being a past colony of Portugal. Let me tell you this though, that was a very well made movie: funny, emotional, and uplifting, plus this – based on a true story.

The electronic medical records countdown has began and by April 4^th we will be transitioning from the traditional chart binders to computer documentation. What does that mean to us mental health workers? Well, less paper of course. The chart packs we make on the night shift will significantly diminish. Pretty soon they may not be needing us because we may become redundant. If they can only get the licensed nurses to check the patients every 15 minutes and take them out for smoke breaks, it will make my position unnecessary.

                Are you using GPS based running apps for the IPhone or Android? How well do they work compared to GPS watches?  Will they make GPS watches unnecessary?

A co-worker ask me to look at his neighbor’s computer to find out why it wouldn’t connect to the internet. After the computer booted, I connected to our work wi-fi and instantly connected to the internet without any problems. I asked my co-worker if his neighbor had an internet connection at home. He said he didn’t know. I’m guessing that the neighbor never had an internet connection but assumed that after buying the computer, the internet automatically came with it. How many people do you think have that problem?

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Recent Reconnections

I recently reconnected with a former psych hospital co-worker from 1981. At that time there were a lot of psych majors working as behavior specialists as a step towards better professions. For me, just having arrived in the U.S., it was a step up financially because the pay was much higher to what I was earning in the Philippines. Have I remained stagnant since because I am still in the same kind of job until now? Although that could possibly be, I have made a living out of it and if I am able to keep it up until I’m 62 or 66, I may even be able to retire comfortably. Meanwhile my former co-worker had become a child care specialist in the San Diego area. I think she married her boyfriend from way back when we were working together. If not, well, maybe they were both named Bob. Nice to be in touch with you again, S.V.!

Another person I reconnected with was a very close female friend during our high school days. My former classmates and I have been wondering where she had disappeared to. Google, Friendster, and suspected places of work searches yielded nothing. She remained out of sight but not out of mind until a few weeks ago when her daughter found one of our classmates in Saudi Arabia (where else but through Facebook). Our friend has remained in our town all these years and has become a dean in a university there. This was the girl who code named me Renault in high school, which I mentioned in another post maybe a couple of years back. So great to hear about her success in professional and family life (married with 4 kids). Welcome to Facebook F.A.!

Even though I don’t have many friends on Facebook, the ones I have extend globally over several continents covering countries from the Middle East, Africa, Switzerland, Australia, a few other Southeast Asian countries, and of course mostly from the country of my birth – the Philippines.

Speaking of Facebook, I remember when I first signed up and reconnected with friends, I couldn’t wait for status updates and comment threads. I would even get up in the middle of the night when I heard my email announcement. That lasted maybe a month or two before it got old. It was exciting at first but losing sleep and rest just to see new comments wasn’t worth it, I finally decided. I now turn off the sound of the computer before I go to bed. Now, don’t deny it. You were probably doing the same thing when you first signed up for Facebook or Twitter ;)

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