Medical Tests and False Promises of Snow

 I had to have a medical test yesterday.  It was officially called a screening test but I'd flunked the at home test.  

So, in prep, I had to go on a low residue diet for three days prior, be tested for corona virus, and the night before, drink two liters of foul liquid.  Then I had to get up at 4:00 a.m. to drink two more liters of that liquid.

I can't say the liquid tasted badly, with its lemon flavoring, but it did make me vomit at first, when drinking it too fast.  Other than that, it wasn't a big deal to drink it and the three day low residue diet wasn't a big deal either.

I had to find a ride, since I would undergo anesthesia.  An online friend volunteered and showed up on time, drove me over to Corvallis and I had the procedure.   The anesthesia was nice, went black pleasantly, had wonderful dreams, woke up telling them not to wake me, because of those pleasant dreams.

I will get the results in a couple of weeks.   I had two small polyps found but removed and diverticuloses, which did not surprise me, having had two episodes of what I thought was food poisoning, in the last three years.  However after the episode I experienced in Detroit, a year and a half ago, when at the motel owned by a friend, a year before the fires destroyed the motel, I looked up my symptoms online and felt I had divirticulitis which happens when the diverticuli pouches become inflamed.  I went to the doctor once home, and expressed my opinion to her, but was blown off about it.  Now, after the colonoscopy, I'm fairly certain that is what I experienced and not food poisoning and again, same thing, last May, when I thought maybe I'd caught coronavirus.  

They biopsy any polyps removed, so that's the report I'll get in two weeks time.  They told me, I think, since I was still groggy from anesthesia, not to worry, that they were small and likely just benign.  I had a benign one removed ten or eleven years ago too.

Colonoscopy is not just a screening test, its a preventive procedure since they remove any polyps and some can be precancerous. 

I slept the rest of the day yesterday.  I was tired, both from being up most of the night but also from anesthesia.  

We were promised a storm with snow.  Yeah I love snow, ok.  I grew up on the southern Oregon coast where it was wind, rain and fog and not even much sun, in the summer.    I moved to Alaska for awhile, when I was young, and grew to love the snow and cold.  At least it was a break from just rain and wind. I've lived in the mid valley in Oregon now for decades, where the weather is mostly rain and drizzle and damp for nine months of the year, with sometimes hot summers and sometimes rainy and very mild summers.   We generally get no snow, or maybe a brief dusting once a winter.  It rarely even freezes here, although a few winters we've had spells down below ten degrees that last a week or two.  Mostly our fall, winter and spring weather is just constant rain, drizzle, damp and gray.

The below forecast is for Beaverton, up near Portlland, area...

The thought of snow made me happy!  Something beautiful, quiet and different.  But as the week progressed the forecast has changed so that we here, in the mid valley, at most likely will experience a bit of freezing rain tomorrow and not a flake of snow.  Portland might get six inches or so of snow, from cold air being blown down the Columbia River Gorge.  There may be blizzard conditions east of Portland in the gorge. But we are not affected by the gorge winds, in bringing us weather.

No snow for us here, just rain.....

Nonetheless, the Salem clinic is closed Friday, because their spay neuter vet is from the area in Portland that may get a lot of snow and ice, and because of the freezing rain forecast for Salem tomorrow.   

So not only are we getting no snow, but I have no cat round up to do for Friday either.

The news has been full of wildlife officials begging folks to take down bird feeders.   A bad salmonella outbreak caused by dirty bird feeders has hit the state.   I'll do my part and take mine down even though it'd been empty for awhile.  I'm too lazy to wade through the wet grass to go fill it.  So I toss a handful on the driveway cement instead.  The cats like to watch the birds through the windows in the morning.  So I toss it down outside the windows of the house, on the side and front, for their entertainment.  I guess that's ok, according to wildlife officials.  But not the bird feeders.  

I look at my old cats and wonder which will be next to go.  I did not have Cougie on that list.  I didn't have Stiletto on that list either of those I thought would be next, to die of age related problems.  On my list are Comet, my old boy;  Panda and Soloman, my elderly frail brother sister pair of long hair black tuxes; Brambles, who is very elderly; Mops and Buffy, the aging old brother and sister;  and even sisters Tugs and Mums.  Well, to be honest, it could be any of them next.  Nobody's young here, except Little Thunder.

I just hope its not me who's next for whom the bell tolls.   Then what would become of all of them.

Don't fault us here in Oregon for getting all excited over the possibility of even a tiny amount of snow.  We don't have much going on in our lives in the winter.