Mid Life Adventures

There are pros and cons of tooling through mid-life. Last week I had my approaching middle-age exam and had my usual prostate exam (yes, the one you hear all the jokes about) as well as a PSA test. This is the blood test which is the first-line defense against prostate cancer and every male approaching age fifty should get them annually. It is a FACT that evey male, if he dies of old age, will die with prostate cancer--not from it, but with it, so getting checked for it is important.

The next milestone was my first colonoscopy. This panoramic tour of one's South Forty is done under a "waking anesthesia," which I think in my youth was known as a "goofball shot." Other than taking three attempts to set the IV, which caused me to turn green, white, pale cyan, and speckled orange, all went well. Anyway, I've heard you're not supposed to recall anything about the procedure. If so, It didn't work. I do recall the procedure. I also recall they waited until I was as high as Lindsey Lohan at one of Joachim Phoenix's rap concerts to ask me if I minded some med student "observers" (who turned out to be a trio of young ladies) to watch the procedure. At that point, I would have agreed to allow the procedure to take place on the Evening News. Those are some good drugs. So three attractive young ladies stared at my aging ass while I babbled on about all kinds of nonsense. I hope they got their money's worth.

I also recall for some reason the Doctor and I having a spirited conversation about Letters of Marque. These were documents issued to Privateers during the Revolutionary War which allowed them to raid British ships for supplies. Ron Paul wanted to issue Letters of Marque to modern Privateers against Bin Laden to ensure his capture. Like I said, those were some good drugs. They open the closet doors of your mind and all kinds of junk you didn't even know you had in there tumbles out.

So the Doc, for some reason, gave me a postcard-sized composite with eight shots of various twists and turns of my colonic catacombs. And I must say--from my layman's perspective--it appears a most attractive and vigorous specimen indeed. I'm sure both the Doctor and the three female observers were all impressed by my colon's wholesomeness, rosy-cheeked innocence, and hearty moral uprightness. I attribute this to my high-fiber vegetarian diet, clean, pure thoughts and high standard of living I demand of all my appendages, both external and inward.

I'm told my next colonoscopy won't be for another five years, so with that behind me I think the future looks pretty bright.

I got the estimate on my car (the grill and bumper were cracked during yesterday's fender-bender) and it's so low I've been told it won't affect my insurance rates. Plus I'll get new headlights. My ability to read music has returned, so it was a temporary freak-out and not a stroke or something, which is a relief, because I would hate to have to retrain myself after only three weeks of hard work.