The clock on the far wall read 8:44 a.m. when the anesthesiologist told me to enjoy my sleep.
The next thing I remember was waking up and not immediately recognizing what room I was in. It wasn’t until a nurse welcomed me back that I realized I was in the room I had been assigned before I was wheeled across the hall.
She told me that it was over and the doctor would be in shortly to talk to me about the results.
I couldn’t believe it when she handed me my phone and reading glasses; it was only 9:10 a.m.
The doctor came into my room a few minutes later to tell me that everything went well. He then handed me a piece of paper with seven photos showing the inside of my colon.
He complimented me on the prep I had done the day before and then gave me the good news, he found no polyps and no signs of cancer.
The news was one of the two highlights of what had been a terrible week, the other being a rare solid round in the Attleboro Area Golf Association senior championship two days earlier.
My first colonoscopy took place 12 years ago. This one had been scheduled to take place two years ago but I postponed it a couple of times and then the pandemic hit.
I remember the first time being much worse, especially the liquid I had to consume before that first procedure.
This time I around I was prescribed over the counter pills and heavy doses of Miralax mixed with Gatorade.
I also recall the recovery from the anesthesia being much worse that first time and told friends that the recovery was worse than the prep and actual procedure.
It is why I had planned to sleep most of the day after returning from the hospital, especially after I had been up since 3:30 that morning taking the second bottle of my “special cocktail.”
The day was very productive.
I had the house to myself and was situated under the air conditioner with my laptop, “Friends” was on the television. I was able to complete more than if I had been in my office, as there were no phone calls (other than a few robocalls) and no one to distract me from my tasks.
Thank you to everyone who played a role in my visit to Sturdy Memorial Hospital. Each and every one of them made me feel like I was the most important patient they were dealing with that day.
We are lucky to have them in our backyard.
I mentioned above that the colonoscopy was one of the bright spots in what had otherwise been a dismal week.
It all started a week ago Friday morning when North TV was unable to get a signal from the Bishop Feehan auditorium to cablecast and stream live the school’s baccalaureate Mass.
We ran into a similar problem earlier this year at the New England Sports Village and attributed it to our location at the top of Feehan’s balcony and proximity to the steel beams in the ceiling above.
We were, therefore, not surprised when it happened again that night after Feehan was forced to move their graduation in the auditorium after forecasts called for heavy rain.
Saturday’s North Attleboro graduation was much worse.
It took more than 20 minutes to drive the North TV production van the 500 yards from the police station parking lot to Ralph Street behind Community Field and it had to be towed away after the ceremony. We learned a few days later a family of mice had claimed our engine as their home and had sealed the air intake valve with their nest.
We then found out that the issues we had experienced the day before had nothing to do with location. After dozens of attempts, we were forced to announce that technical issues prevented us from showing the graduation live.
It’s been said that bad news comes in threes and that was the case the next day with our coverage of the Tri-County graduation.
Although we were able to work around the issues that had prevented us from for transmitting live the two previous days, one of the two cameras we were using indicated the internal fan was not working.
The camera soon overheated in the 90+ heat. Viewers will notice when we replay the graduation next week that the first few minutes of Sunday’s ceremony are missing.
There’s a word for that type of week, especially when that week ends with a colonoscopy but I can’t think of it at this time. It probably would be inappropriate for a family newspaper, anyway.
