Pedestrian View

One week into my 45th year, I was privvy to a revolution plot and had my first CAT Scan.  Why did I put the scan off so long?  I realize these gizzmos have been around for awhile, but this was my first opportunity to slip into the donut.

Actually, the scan was a non-event except for the half gallon of iodine solution I had to down in the preceding hour.  I can see why the stuff isn’t available in vending machines.  My bladder didn’t fill until precisely the moment that the spacey bed whirred me into the heart of the donut.  A digital voice commanded me to hold my breath a few times, putting additional pressure on my bladder, while the machine took pictures of my abdomen, but I remeained continent.  They’re looking for evidence of what’s causing my chronic bloating.  I suspect they’ll find Sherry’s cell phone that she lost last month, a permission slip that Maia was supposed to return to school, and some paper clips.

“Does this bedsheet make me look bloated?” I asked Lori the technician.

Lori assured me I looked fine. She also said the pictures were very good, and that the doctor would have to show them to me.  I’m waiting by the phone.

On my way home, I killed some time at a downtown coffee shop between busses.  I sat at a table next to three “suits.”  Truthfully, only one was in a suit, the other two in sweaters, but they were in the set of business professionals that populate downtown Duluth, along with the local homeless population (it’s a nice mix).  I had no choice but to listen to their conversation about Obama’s press first conference last night.

“I’m so tired of this.”

“It’s just the same old bi-partisan stuff.”

“All I heard from Obama was ‘I…I…I…I.’  It’s all about him.”

“We just need to throw all of the bums out and start from scratch.”

Note:  We’d actually planned to watch the conference, but were thwarted by Wolfe Blitzer, who earlier had said it would be on CNN at eight.  Of course, we didn’t adjust for the time zone difference.  Morons!  Anyway, we watched some of the pundits analyze after, but fell asleep.

I found it comical that these suits, clearly bastians of the status quo, were advocating out and out revolution.  I briefly considered we board the #9 bus together, hijack the driver, head for DC, and get ‘er done!

Instead, I finished my bagel.

I celebrated my 45th birthday earlier in the week with a morning trip to my local Digestive Health Center.

I was walking the four blocks to the nearest bus stop when it happened again.  My friend Kevin, on his way out the door, asked, “Are you headed to work?”

I decided on candor.  “No.  I’m catching a bus to visit a digestive health specialist,” I said, to which he responded with typical apologetic mortification that he could give me a ride, err, at least part way there.  It’s a Midwestern cultural phenomenon that I’ve experienced many times.  Riding the bus is seen as some kind of pathetic act which prompts people to fall all over themselves to offer assistance.

“Thanks,”  I said, “but the bus takes me right past the clinic, and it’ll be here in three minutes.”  All perfectly true.

“Well at least let me pray for you then, ” he said.

“Well sure,” I said.  He was wearing neon green gloves, and he laid one on my stomach as we bowed our heads in the street and he prayed eloquently that God bring healing to my digestive tissues.  I was a little disappointed that no one drove by, but I was more than happy to have some devine assistance with how my body is processing nutrients.

“Amen.”

I had just enough time to walk the remaining block to the bus stop, and in short order the #9 was rumbling its way downtown.  At the clinic, I was given a pager in the waiting room, and when it did its thing, I headed through the designated double doors, where a confused looking nurse waited.

“Are you Steve?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

She looked over at the scale where a grizzled gentleman was being weighed by another nurse.  The two nurses exchanged puzzled glances and one of them said to the gentleman, “You’re not Steve?”   He grinned sheepishly and they traded files,

“He said his name was Steve,” the nurse whispered as the other nurse led a smirking Melvin away.  I’m not sure I want his digestive problem, but I liked his style.

In a few minutes, Deanna Bakken NP grilled me on my persistent stomach bloating that normal acid reflux treatment doesn’t seem to touch. 

“One possibility,” she said, “Is celiac sprue.”  I liked the sound of that.  I made her write it down for me so i could say it later with authority.

“We’ll probably have to do an upper GI scope, so our office will be calling you.”

Back at the bus stop below the clinic, I waited for the #13 in the -2 F shelter.  A young man – long black hair, safety pins in his ear, black Yakee’s cap half cocked, black hoodie, cigarette – stopped in to share it with me.

“Dude, it’s cold out here, but I had to get outta there for awhile,” he said.

“Are you visiting someone up in the hospital?”

“Yeah!  I had a baby!”

“Congratulations, man.  How’d it go?”  He told me all about it.  It was a happy story.  She’s named Madeline and is a big baby.

“I said I didn’t care what it looked like as long as it was healthy, and she is, man.  She’s just beautiful.”

“She was born on a good day,” I said as the #13 pulled up.  “It’s my birthday.”

“Happy Birthday, man!”

“Congratulations to you and your woman, man!”

That night I celebrated with some great homemade cards from Maia and Maritha, Kylie’s powerhouse poem arriving from Mexico via Skype, strawberry rhubarb pie, and a very personal, top secret card from Sherry.  A good time was had by all.

I got the call the next day, yesterday, that the digestive folks want to do an upper GI scope, a colonoscopy, and a CT scan.

Here’s to you, Madeline!

It’s possible that I’m addicted to MLK marches.  Besides the obvious allure of marching for civil rights and marching to honor MLK, I think it’s the cold that’s the attraction.

My first march would have been in January of 1994 in Grand Forks, ND.  I think it was -10 degrees, and Kylie was almost two years old, bundled up in a powder blue snow suit.  I remember it because she got her picture in the Grand Forks Herald.  Not to be outdone, it was about that cold in 2003 when a parka clad marcher clomped down Superior Street onto the front page of The Budgeteer News.  You’ll have to take my word for it that it was me.  Media mavens.  I’ve still got the parka (zipper’s broken, but for cryin’ out loud, you can’t just throw it out like it was nothin’!).

Today Maritha, Sherry and I marched with several hundred down Lake Avenue and then Superior Street.  It was about 15 degrees, tropical almost, and it definitely had a party like feel to it.  There were lots of parents with tiny kids, like Kylie back in the day.  There were people we knew, and many more that we didn’t know, but there was a feeling that we were marching some place real.

That place was either a better world, or the DECC auditorium where there was a rally afterwards.  There was great music, and Dr. Curtis Austin of the U of Southern Miss was an interesting key note, but it was warm in the auditorium and my feet got hot.  A march without adversity is a great thing – easy and enjoyable.  I can imagine that any marching Dr. King did was considerably different.

Funny, but I miss the bitter cold; the forcast has more of it coming.  Said my meteorologist, that Obama fellow, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”  My feet are warm, so bring it on.

He came to the final exam late, bucket in hand.  It was square, 3.3 gallon, just like this one only bright yellow.

“Nice bucket,” I said.  Wise guy.

He stuck it under his desk next to his knees, and got started.

About a half an hour later, he got up, bucket in hand, and bolted for the hallway.

I suddenly understood the bucket.  I peeked into the hallway, but decided to give him his space.  My only other choice would have been to offer to hold his forehead.  I passed.

About ten minutes later, when things calmed down out there, I slipped into the hall.

“Would you like to just go home and finish this another time?” I asked.

“No,” he said.  “I’m OK.”

He left the bucket in the hallway, spent another half hour on his exam, and headed out into the snow with the bucket.

“Drive carefully,” I called.

He raised his bucket.  Nuff said.

…and it turns out to be Kylie. 

She was scheduled to be home Dec. 13, but she snuck one past us, changed her flight, and gained entry to the house at 1:00 a.m. this morning.

Whitney Buck, her best friend from HS, went down to MSP to bring her back to Duluth.  She gained entry to the house in the usual way (hidden key), crept up to climb in bed with Maia, and then the two of them came down to climb in with Maritha.  Maritha was having none of it, and demanded repeatedly, “Who is this?”  She thought she was begin mugged. 

At this point, the slumbering rents finally heard some noise and grogily stumbed upon the intruder and her accomplices.  Maia was experiencing a little stomach flu and proceeded to treat us all to a stomach flu display as we all cuddled on the sofa together.

Twelve hours later, she’s still sleeping…and we’re going to cut a fresh Christmas Tree.

So I went to the doctor a week before Thanksgiving and he told me I’m suffering from acid reflux symptoms.  For months, I’ve been noticing that as the day progresses, even if I eat very moderately, my stomach feels fuller and fuller.  By the end of the day, I’m usually uncomfortably full.  It’s not painful, just uncomfortable.  Then in the last month I started having the burning sensations.

I thought it was a tumor or a ball of twine.  Good news for the holidays.

Anyone wanna see my colon?