Giving Thanks

Thank you to everyone who has donated to my LLS fundraiser. Thanks to those of you who have already donated, we are off to a great start. We have $920 in coffers.

To those who have not yet donated: My goal is to meet and beat last year's total raised: $4761. That leaves $3841 to go. I know with everyone's love and support, I can make it.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Two for Two

I keep having the adventures in Tucson. Actually, I have been there a couple of times in the last 2 weeks and I have saved lives. Yes! I did.

Two weeks ago, I was on my training route with my faithful dogger, Bridgette. We hadn’t even made it to the end of the block, when we heard snuffling in the bushes. Of course I had to investigate. (My Mom’s hood is up against the beautiful Catalina Mountains on the north side of Tucson. We can have all kinds of wildlife roaming the streets: deer, bobcats, javalinas, bunnies, Gila monsters, quail, etc.) This day it was a beagle! Not usually indigenous to the area, but quite adaptable to the climate. Bridgette bee-lined it to her. I promise I am not making this up, I watched Bridge show her the way back to the house and told her we had food and water. Because that’s what she did. She went straight into the garage. She went straight for the water and Bridge’s kibble. She wore a Humane Society tag, so I was able to locate her family promptly and return her to her home.







I rescued Honey, the beagle.



Then, yesterday, I was in Mom's bathroom, feeling ill, when I heard scratching from the ceiling, bathroom vent. My quest to save animals kicked in and left my bellyache and fear of heights in the dust. I donned my sneakers, grabbed the ladder, trucked the ladder to the side of the house, and climbed said ladder to the roof to find I would not be able complete my rescue mission from the above. I descended, returned the ladder, grabbed a Phillip's head screwdriver and ascended to the top of the toity. I unscrewed the cover and fan to find a perfectly preserved lizard. Impressed with my discovery and depressed that I could not reach the critter inside, because of a metal case, I shared the lizard mummy with Mom. That lizard will be on display in her classroom next year. A little while later, Mom and I were at the back of the house and I was walking out of her bedroom, when I spied a fully operational and alive lizard hanging out in the carpet at the foot of her bed! It was a team effort to catch him/her. Mom and I caught him, shared him with Dad and his home health care aide...







...and I set the lizard free.



It was very exciting. Who knows what creature I will save next time! Octopus? Moose? Penguin? There's just no telling. Clearly, I have a calling to save animals.

AZ Voters Unite!

Update:

ADLA Legislative Update – June 23, 2008

HB 2701 Passes the Senate Unanimously

Thanks for all your calls to your legislators! HB 2701, which enables counties to deny kennel permits to people who have been convicted of animal cruelty passed the AZ Senate unanimously today.

Please Call Your Senator Now on Animal Protection Bill

We have just learned that a bill in the Arizona Legislature that will enable counties to deny kennel permits to people who have been convicted of animal cruelty will be voted on by the entire Senate tomorrow. The following amendment was added to an unrelated bill:

The county shall deny a kennel permit to any person who has been convicted of a violation of section 13-2910 or 13-2910.01 or any other state, county or municipal animal welfare law, except violations of license and leash laws.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Please contact your senator by tomorrow morning and ask him or her to Vote YES on HB 2701, county graffiti abatement; procedures. Let your senator that you support denying kennel permits to persons convicted of animal cruelty. Be sure to mention that you are a constituent in his or her district.
Senate contact information is at http://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster.asp?Body=S . All Senators can also be reached toll-free at 1-800-352-8404.

Colonoscopy According to Dave Barry

In a solid effort to share with you, my fabulous readers, a trip to Erica Town. A friend sent me this...

...I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis. Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, ``HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BUTT!''

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called ''MoviPrep,'' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes -- and here I am being kind -- like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, ''a loose watery bowel movement may result.'' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, ''What if I spurt on Andy?'' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the hell the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was Dancing Queen by Abba. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, Dancing Queen has to be the least appropriate.

''You want me to turn it up?'' said Andy, from somewhere behind me.

''Ha ha,'' I said.

And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was shrieking ``Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine . . .''

. . . and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

But my point is this: In addition to being a pathetic medical weenie, I was a complete moron. For more than a decade I avoided getting a procedure that was, essentially, nothing. There was no pain and, except for the MoviPrep, no discomfort. I was risking my life for nothing.

I think that pretty much tells the average bear what to expect. My prep was something called CoLyte, pineapple flavor. Ya, right... Pineapple. My gastro thankfully did not play any ABBA, before I went out. My doctor is a real hipster. He came walking in the room, wearing all black, toting his iPod, and taking requests. Groovy, Baby.

Next test is on the 25th and it is my Lex Luthor of tests: the dreaded Small Bowel Follow Through. Sadly, it is not a test for which one is anesthesitised. Ick.

Just around the bend

The good news it: No sign of Crohn's in my colon. A couple items were removed for biopsy. I'll hear back on those later. The not as good news (this does not equal bad news): I have some extra bends and twists in my colon. They may be caused from scar tissue from previous surgery or (this cracks me up) I'm just made this way. {Several years ago I had a small bowel follow-through* to have pretty much the same information. The doctor then said one of the loops in my small intestine twisted in the opposite direction of normal people. Great. Am I twisted or not normal.?} No matter how it comes to pass, it explains why I have pain where I do and the chronic constipation issue. If it gets bad enough, there is surgery to fix it. Alas, surgery causes more scar tissue. What to do. What to do. No matter what, I am one of the lucky ones.

Time for a shout out to a real HERO! Can I get a "Woot-Woot"?
This afternoon, I donned my Got Guts cap and ate my first solid food with Paul at Wildflower Bread Company. I was approached by a mom and her two daughters (I will call them My Wildflower Girls). Mom's youngest daughter has colitis and later this week is having another surgery. This little Wildflower wore a big smile and seemed to take it in stride. She is tough and ready to take on whatever comes. That is awesome. At such a young age to be dealt a pretty rough deck, she has a battle. But she has strength and a family who loves her very much. This Wildflower Girl is a hero.

We all have to deal with what life brings us. You make your choice. Is this going to beat you down, kick you to the curb and let it take your milk money? Feel sorry for yourself? I say, "No." Simple. To the point. NO. Yes, the bad can get to you, but for the love of chocolate, KEEP YOUR MILK MONEY! Feeling down is a step we must go through. Nowhere in the steps does it say: stay down and drag everyone down with you. You are permitted to have 24 hours of "mourning" and them you get up and start the fight. (Thank you, Judith for those words of wisdom.) When your 24 hours are done, you make your game plan. Right now my game plan consists of NOT waiting on pins and needles for the results of my biopsies. I have stuff to do: my life to live, love and be thankful for my man, my family and friends, my cats and dog. I'll get to the dishes and laundry later.

*Small bowel follow through is a kind of set of x-rays. The patient has the pure joy of drinking this noxious, thick liquid (no matter what they tell you, tastes like chalk mixed in wet cement, not strawberry). As this sludge moves through your digestive tract, x-rays are taken tracking the flow. Now, the most important thing is to DRINK DRINK DRINK post procedure. As in have a super-duper big gulp of water with you waiting to be consumed. If you don't that wet cement gets hard in your guts and getting rid of takes an act of congress. When I was in my heyday of diagnosis, I couldn't eat let alone drink without throwing up. I had a SBFT one morning and was in the hospital by the afternoon getting intravenous fluids. I was in so much pain, you would have thought an exorcism was being performed. I punctured the gurney mattress with my talons. Yeah, it hurt a touch. It made appendicitis look like a little gas after having too much curry.

Giving Crohn's a punch in the gut

Addendum 06.03.08: Our new total is $725! Thank you, Susy!

Yesterday was a beautiful day to take a walk in Tucson with Mom, Laurie and Monica. It was in honor and support of my guts and butt. Paul, our official Athletic Support, was on the sidelines shooting pictures. All in all my little unofficial team raised $700!

Thank you to my donors:
Mom, who was also a fellow team mate and fundraiser
Vicki
Golondrina
Heather
Scott
Ed
Elaine
Candy
Russ
Helga (who donated to Laurie and Monica on my behalf)
And one anonymous family donor, you know who you are, thank you.

You folks are fabulous!

It was only a 2-mile walk, but everyone broke a sweat. It was 97 and clear skies; absolutely gorgeous. This was a “Noise Making” event. We made tons of it: tooting horns, cheering, maracas and barking dogs. We even got the attention of a passing moving truck, which honked on our behalf down River Road. Since I have been nicknamed The Princess for years (Why? Don’t know!), I donned my court in crowns. Two crowns were mine and Monica’s 3year-old daughter, Katie, begrudgingly donated other two. Thank you, Katie.
The event was small, but very personal. It raised over $31,000. There was even a “doctor” offering free colonoscopies. He was a hoot. He had this rig strapped to his chest that looked like a vacuum hose and some kind of screen.
After our walk around Brandi Fenton Memorial Park we bee-lined it back to Mom’s house, where Paul treated these endurance athletes to a victory dinner of Magpie’s Pizza. So good!

Next year I will form an official team. I already have requests to join the silliness and fun. As a matter of fact, I just might need to do a Phoenix team and a Tucson team!

Thank you to everyone who donated, walked, raised funds, and supported Take Steps for Crohn’s and Colitis.