Warning: posting may be intermittent, and I may be particularly cranky. I volunteered to chair two search committees at once — we’re trying to find sabbatical replacements, and since I’m a terrible person abandoning my colleagues for a year, I felt obligated to put in one last surge of work to get it done. Unfortunately, it’s all coming down in the last two weeks of class, so I’m a little overwhelmed right now. A little. May break down in tears soon.
Also, stress means I wake up at 3am now and can’t get back to sleep, which further increases stress. Who designed this physiology, anyway? This is not the place to stick a feed-forward loop.
I just have to hang in there for a few more weeks, and then as a reward for when everything is all done, I’ve scheduled a colonoscopy.
PZ:
It’s about time! All my best hopes you come through all clean.
But, by the end of May, you will be loafing on a beach sipping iced tea. Have a good sabbatical.
@Caine .. awesome pun to wake up to!
The colonoscopy is a breeze. They put you to sleep and then you wake up in a puddle of anal leakage. It’s the prep that sucks eggs.
I know how this feels. It’s alarming and distressing. You will recover.
The mildly deranged penguin has offered to send you some cheese, to help you feel better. This is — for her — quite nice, albeit I caution caution: It will probably arrive supersonically after being fired from a trebuchet here on the other side of the pond, so you might want to put on a tin-foil hat. Said hat would perhaps would assist the sleeping? Or more likely, the not-sleeping? (I’ll see if I can convince her to send some by less-ballistic means…)
Here is a far more relaxing pastime, 2018 European Stone Stacking Championship (photo-essay): “The competition taking place in Dunbar, Scotland is one of Europe’s largest championships for stone stacking and balancing artists”. It’s impressive, with perhaps the only worrying aspect being most of the pictured competitors are bearded weather-beaten men sporting similar hats.
@4:”The colonoscopy is a breeze. They put you to sleep”
They do? I was awake the whole time and I’m good with that. First the procedure was mostly a dawdle, except for the “turning the corner” bit and that wasn’t bad, really. At least for me. Given the risks of general anaesthetic I didn’t mind. Of course that was years ago when I was younger.
But all in all I’ve had much worse times at the dentist.
Who designed this physiology, anyway?
Come on PZ, you know our physiology isn’t designed.
You certainly can have a colonoscopy without a full general anaesthetic. In fact, all else being equal, you have to wonder if it is ethical to advise a full general anaesthetic if it is not actually required. In the UK they routinely do colonoscopies using just a sedative such as Midazolam. In the USA they seem to routinely do them using a full GA.
Interestingly, my son had a gastroscopy last year without any anaesthetic or sedative. He looked it up online and was informed this was possible. He immediately regretted it, but managed to resist pulling the scope out. (A gastroscopy involves putting a scope down your throat into your stomach and then past the stomach and into the duodenum)
Just remember how very, very, VERY appreciated you are !!!