I woke up to having no RoadRunner service, which pissed me off. I called, and the person ended up diagnosing, “The server is coming back up right now. We must have lost it in the storm last night. Try again in 30 minutes, an hour at the most.”
Little did I know then, it would still not be up when I returned home from work later today.
I decided that I’d better shower and prepare to go in to the office today, just in case. I checked again after my shower, and drove into work.
Today I was allowed only “a liquid breakfast, lunch and dinner. For example: yogurt Jell-O, milk shake, Boost or Ensure. Any broth is okay, including chicken broth, beef bouillon, cream of mushroom, or noodle soup.”
On the way into work, in the cafeteria downstairs, I bought some 
for breakfast.
For lunch, I again went to our cafeteria, and used the ladle in the Vegetable Soup pot to get only the broth from it.
At about 2:30, I drank a 
On the way home, I mailed Rebecca’s birthday card at the post office on Highway 54.
While driving, I thought about how I could get my 30 minutes of exercise in, and still start my “colonoscopy preparation” by 6:00 as the instructions required.
I devised a win/win plan, and executed it:
| Walk from house to shopping center at the corners of Gorman and Avent Ferry Road. | |
| Get strawberry milkshake at Hardee’s and drink it while walking to the Family Dollar store to buy a measuring cup that shows ounces. | |
| Walk back home. |
At 6:00 PM, I mixed 1.5 oz. of chilled Fleet Phospho-Soda with 4 oz. water and drank it down in one swallow. It really wasn’t that much, and I purposefully swallowed it all in one gulp in anticipation of the horrible taste intimated by the instructions: “You can make the solution taste better by adding artificially sweetened flavorings (Ginger ale, Apple juice, lemon/lime juice, Kool-Aid, white grape juice, or Crystal-Light, for example, but nothing red or purple.)”
It really didn’t taste that bad at all, certainly not enough for all of the fuss in the instructions. It was a little salty, but not terribly bad.
I fixed me some cream of mushroom soup for dinner.
At just before 7:00, my stomach starting making noises like those water bubblers do when you drain a paper cup full of water out of them. Minutes later, the first of a long night of John in the john began.
My alarm went off at 7:30, just 30 short minutes later, and I took two Bisacodyl tablets, which are the equivalent of Correctol or Dulcolax tablets. Yippee!
At a little after 8:00, Robert arrived, and the dear, dear man had a bottle of maple syrup for me.
Now this is what I tried to explain to my last partner about being thoughtful. I told him once that he wasn’t thoughtful, and his feelings were hurt.
I’d said, “You’re a very kind, sweet, gentle man, and you’d do anything I ask, but you’re not thoughtful. Because thoughtful means doing things for someone else — something they want — without having to be asked to. You think of it; that would be the thoughtful part.”
This simple gesture on Robert’s part is “quintessential thoughtful,” and one of the things I dearly, dearly love about him.
He read yesterday, in my blog, that I’d gotten everything I needed at K-Mart except syrup. And what does he show up with today?
Now that’s thoughtful.
Thank you, my sweet.
Robert and I did crossword puzzles, as much as I could participate. I had done some of the USA Today one before he’d arrived. We finished that one, and then worked on the one from The Independent, which was a major bitch.
I drank my required three glasses of water before turning the lights out around midnight. I took it upon myself to define three glasses of water as three EIGHT OUNCE glasses of water, the smallest possible.
I set my alarm for 3:30AM, my next required “dosage,” but felt certain that I’d be up well before that to tend to whatever these three glasses of water would bring between now and then.
In fact, I woke up at about 3:15, and all I really had to do was pee. Excellent, if not TMI.
At 3:30, I mixed 1.5 oz. Fleet Phospho-Soda with 4 oz. water and drank it. I then had a “chaser” of one Bisacodyl — another laxative tablet. I thought, “My god, if there is any shit left in me, well, I would just shit.”
And I did, right up until I left for the appointment at 6:40 AM.