Archive for the ‘Ponderings’ Category

Looking up an old friend

Saturday, April 20th, 2013

Coloncartoon

Yesterday’s colonoscopy went well. While I will have to wait for the pathology results from the biopsy, the doctor found heaps of diverticula (not for the squeamish) in my colon. The preliminary diagnosis is diverticulosis and my recent problems put down to diverticulitis flare ups.

From what I understand so far, the general treatment/prevention approach is maintaing my usual high fibre diet unless I have a ‘flare up’. If a flare up occurs then I’ll need to go onto a clear liquid diet until the symptoms subside before moving onto a low fibre diet and then slowly increasing the fibre.  If things don’t improve then there are more extreme dietary and surgical options to consider.

I am blessed to have a good friend who has similar issues and he has been great in sharing how he is balancing his intake as well as praying for a positive outcome.

Most pleasingly of all, given the 48hrs of fasting and cleanser-glugging, the post-procedure report ends with a resounding ‘The quality of the bowel preparation was good‘.  I feel that, at the very least, there should be a certificate or a badge to recognise my bowel-preparing skills, one that I can display next to the one I got in 1974 for cycling proficiency.

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Going into all this, I wasn’t 100% sure on what the procedure or the bowel preparation stuff was going to be like. Despite some intensive Googling, I hadn’t found a decent first person account.  This was fortuitously remedied by our lovely friend Anne who emailed me the following account, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning humour columnist Dave Barry for the Miami Herald, just as I was consuming the first two litres of Glycoprep. 

After reading it, I can unequivocally state three things:

  1. A truer account of bowel preparation you will not find
  2. You’re unlikely to read a funnier account of bowel preparation (I wish I had written this)
  3. Unlike, you should not read about bowel preparation whilst actually doing bowel preparation; I did and it was almost my undoing in more ways than one.

Enjoy.

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 colour 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, “He’s going to stick a tube 17,000 feet up my clacker!”

I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called ‘Glycoprep’, which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss Glycoprep 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 the 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 flavour.

Then, in the evening, I took the Glycoprep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one litre plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a litre is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because Glycoprep 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 Glycoprop, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humour, state that after you drink it, ‘a loose watery bowel movement may result’.

This is like saying that after you jump off the roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

Glycoprop 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 Glycoprep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the toilet 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 litre of Glycoprep, at which point, as far as you 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 Glycoprep spurtage, I was thinking, ‘What if I spurt on Andy?’ How do you apologise 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 heck 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, called a cannula, 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 Glycoprep.

At first I was ticked off that 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 down.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anaesthetist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew that 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 anaesthetist began hooking something up to the cannula in my hand.

There was music playing in the room, and I realised 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” had 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 yelling ‘Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine’, and the next moment I was back in the recovery 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 colours. I had never been prouder of an internal organ.

Bottling light

Sunday, February 17th, 2013

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The February show of WNYC’s Radiolab, called ‘Speed‘, contains three great stories. I am encouraging everyone to listen to the show or at least to the segment called Master of the Universe (about 44:48 minutes into the show).
 
It is about the work of Danish scientist Lene Vestergaard Hau (above) who has not only slowed light from the speed of light to just 17 metres a second and later managed to stop a beam of light altogether but went on to transfer light to matter, then from matter back into light – in a different place. Stop and think about it – that’s catching light, storing it, moving it and then releasing it somewhere else at a later time!
 
To a kid who grew up watching Star Trek and grew up to see communicators, tricoders and tablet computers become reality, turning light to matter then back into light sounds not too far away from what the transporter did!

A brief thought on true love

Friday, February 15th, 2013

My dear friend Chuck just posted his thoughts on Valentine’s Day and I was prompted to write the following comment.

We are called upon to love each, full stop (or period, as you say on your side of the Pacific). That means no exceptions and that’s the hardest thing about our faith; we are called to love all, regardless of who they are and what they have done. Not just our loved ones and the nice people but those we visit through prison ministry, those who cut us off in traffic and those whose theology is different from ours. Most of all, we are called to love those who we most abhor, revile, reject, denounce and exclude. Let’s turn Lent on its head and, rather than giving something up, let this be a time where we all take something on and try to love the unloveable. In doing so, we may just catch a glimpse of Him.

I am blessed to have known all sorts of love in my life.  Of late, I have resolved to try my best to love all I come into contact with. I fail abysmally every day but each new morning I resolve try again. How can I not when I receive the very same grace myself?

Sacred Cows and The Calf Path

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Depending on which account you read, Mark Twain or a Commissioner of Education for the State of New York or Abbie Hoffman once said that sacred cows make the best hamburger. While a pithy soundbite like this is full of fun and easy to recall, it doesn’t have half the charm and depth of ‘The Calf Path’, a poem by Sam Walter Foss, which tackles the same theme far more eloquently. I came across the poem whilst reading Julie Ferwerda’s Raising Hell, which explores and questions the notion of hell in Christian doctrine.

The Calf Path

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;

But made a trail all bent askew, 
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled, 
And, I infer, the calf is dead.

But still he left behind his trail, 
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day, 
By a lone dog that passed that way.

And then a wise bell-wether sheep, 
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep;

And drew the flock behind him too, 
As good bell-wethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade. 
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out, 
And dodged, and turned, and bent about;

And uttered words of righteous wrath, 
Because ’twas such a crooked path.

But still they followed – do not laugh – 
The first migrations of that calf.

And through this winding wood-way stalked, 
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane, 
that bent, and turned, and turned again.

This crooked lane became a road, 
Where many a poor horse with his load,

Toiled on beneath the burning sun, 
And traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half, 
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet, 
The road became a village street;

And this, before men were aware, 
A city’s crowded thoroughfare;

And soon the central street was this, 
Of a renowned metropolis;

And men two centuries and a half, 
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout, 
Followed the zigzag calf about;

And o’er his crooked journey went, 
The traffic of a continent.

A Hundred thousand men were led, 
By one calf near three centuries dead.

They followed still his crooked way, 
And lost one hundred years a day;

For thus such reverence is lent, 
To well established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach, 
Were I ordained and called to preach;

For men are prone to go it blind, 
Along the calf-paths of the mind;

And work away from sun to sun, 
To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track, 
And out and in, and forth and back,

And still their devious course pursue, 
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred grove, 
Along which all their lives they move.

But how the wise old wood gods laugh, 
Who saw the first primeval calf!

Ah! many things this tale might teach – 
But I am not ordained to preach.

The Haves and Have Nots

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Consultants © imperator fish

* Average taken from figures from 2008-2009 to 2010-2011 financial years. Source 

** Child Poverty Action Group’s estimate of annual cost to provide breakfasts for the poorest 30% of primary and intermediate schools ($18.9 million)  Source 

Wandering through my Twitter feed, I came across Scott Yorke’s tweet about his latest post at Imperator Fish which contains the chart above.

While I know, like and respect some of the consultants with whom I have worked in my time in New Zealand, these figures only increase my concern about the real costs of the culture of consultation that exists today and raises more questions about who benefits from the same.

Acknowledging that one infographic can never tell the full story and recognising the private sector can spend money however shareholders will allow, I would guess that the true cost/benefit of, and the tangible return on, public sector consultation would be almost impossible to calculate without employing yet more consultants.

On the other hand, the cost of poverty – whether first hand for those in its grasp or the consequential impacts elsewhere in the economy has been diligently recorded in the quarterly Vulnerability Report from The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS) since it was first published three years ago. It makes for sobering and occasionally harrowing reading.

As a former public sector social responsibility manager, I know that there are no easy answers to child poverty and the associated health implications or to addressing the cyclic issues that keep families in poverty and debt. As a citizen who immigrated seven years ago to give his own four kids a better start in life, it troubles me that many in this country are unable to do the same and seem to have little hope of ever doing so.

That the government seem to diminish, marginalise, or worse blithely ignore the issue is unconscionable.

A battle lost

Monday, September 10th, 2012

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We had our first loss on the smallholding earlier today when our calf Willow finally succumbed to the infection she has been fighting for 9 days.  Speaking to our vet this afternoon, rotavirus is the most likely culprit.  He says that it is currently prevalent in the area and many folk are seeing losses amongst newborn calves.

Willow seemed jaded the day we unloaded her from the trailer, so she was most likely already infected and we’ve been fighting an uphill battle since then. For a week now, we have been tube feeding several times a day, alternating between calf milk and electrolytes in an effort to keep her hydration and nourishment up.  Latterly, we have also been administering injections of antibiotics, penicillin and pain killers to get the virus under control and keep her comfortable.

Wendy and Maisie have been the mainstays of the care effort, demonstrating veterinary care skills that belie their relative inexperience with such things. It has been a sad but salutory experience for us all, forcing us to fast-track our ‘on the job’ learning about general animal welfare and hygiene regimens, as well as more specific stuff like giving subcutaneous injections to cows.  

Before sunrise one morning last week, I carried Willow to the shed in the back paddock to get her out of the storm that was blowing through. As I did, it dawned on me that this was something that people have been doing since they first domesticated animals and I more fully appreciated the privilege and responsibilities that come with stewardship.

It feels like we have a lot to learn, though are told that we did everything right and the battle may have been lost before it began. Undoubtedly more calves will follow but we’ll always regret losing our first so quickly.

Ironically, it may well be rotavirus (or a campylobactor infection) that has kept me in bed or the bathroom since last Wednesday. Hopefully, the meds and the electrolytes will kick in soon – especially as I’m meant to be enjoying a week’s leave starting today.  

To end on a brighter note, we have new tenants –  a nice couple who moved into the cottage last Friday and are slowly settling in.

On being asked to dry dishes for the second time in an hour

Monday, February 13th, 2012

Like many I suspect, I used to wonder what ‘dying to yourself‘ meant when I heard it bandied about in books or conversations about Christian faith and living.  The following helped my understanding when I first read it – and still does.

“I was in San Francisco recently staying at this bed and breakfast place for people who are in the city to do ministry. It was a small house, but there were probably fifteen people living there at the time. The guy who ran the place, Bill, was always making meals or cleaning up after us, and I took note of his incredible patience and kindness. I noticed that not all of us did our dishes after a meal, and very few people thanked him for cooking. One morning, before anybody woke up, Bill and I were drinking coffee at the dining room table. I told him I lived with five guys and that it was very difficult for me because I liked my space and needed my privacy. I asked him how he kept such a good attitude all of the time with so many people abusing his kindness. Bill set down his coffee and looked me in the eye. “Don,” he said. “If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus.”

—Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

The passage popped into my head again a short while ago as I headed to the kitchen to dry dishes for the second time in an hour. I hope and pray that I’ll become more like Bill and less like me as time goes on.

Of Kite and Cat

Monday, February 6th, 2012

The womenfolk of the homestead were all preoccupied with their own affairs yesterday so I grabbed a few hours of bloke time and retreated to my workbench.

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There I discovered that if you mess around for an hour or so in order to find the right combination of drinking straws, tissue paper, glue, plastic string and a paper clip, you end up with a fantastic tetrahedral ‘pyramid’ kite for almost no money.

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Down at the local domain for flight testing, the kite jibed and chopped around madly, swooping and spiralling insanely enough to indicate self-destruction if it wasn’t tweaked to deliver a more stable flight.

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The addition of a tiny tail of two straws and string plus a few tweaks of the bridle, to help it sit on rather than in the wind, worked wonders.  It flew like a beauty in variable winds for 30 minutes – during which I just enjoyed myself and put up a few prayers – until I had to pack up and head to a youth ministry meeting.

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Sadly, in my rush to go out, I just left the kite on the workbench, completely forgetting that we have a mischievous moggie in our home.  Moral of the story?  Never leave your handcrafted pride and joy where your inquisitive white cat can play with it.  That said, this tragic molestation does give me the perfect excuse to head to the store and buy the materials for Mark II!

You can see more photos of the construction and flight phases on this Flickr page and a truly murky video clip here.

Dying and Flying

Saturday, February 4th, 2012

Parafoil

In between work and family life, I have had a week of introspection and consideration, spending time considering my priorities in the year ahead. This has meant evaluating, shifting and, in some cases, discarding the big rocks in my world.

Funny then that I should could across a link to Inspiration and Chai, the blog of Australian palliative nurse and singer, Bronnie Ware.  In her most widely quoted post, Regrets of the Dying, she relates the five most common wishes she has heard expressed by those she has cared for in their last days.

  1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
  2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
  4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
  5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Bronnie offers her comments and perspectives in the full post here.

I reckon that I managed to clock up a little of Nos. 1, 2 and 5 earlier today when Maisie and I headed over to the local domain to fly kites. As well as the new kite I bought for Maisie when we were at the beach a few weeks back, we also flew a Worlds Apart Air Sport 170 CX, a couple of Pocket Parafoils (see above) and a homemade dustbin liner and dowel sled kite.

This we did to the backdrop  of cries of ‘Howzat!’ from the cricket club and the inevitable Westie dad teaching his very young offspring how to annoy others and break local byelaws by riding a mini-motorbike with stabilisers.  My mild but silent annoyance at the kid riding across our kite lines at one point changed to horror when, despite the mad shouting of his father, the tiny kid missed the brake and rode headlong into his mum and a younger sibling in a pushchair.

While I wouldn’t want to be unkind, the kid made a half-decent attempt at getting himself, mum and sibling a Darwin Award.

Christlikeness or correct theology?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Again, I find myself I appreciating guest blogger Scott Miller’s open and frank sharing about his faith on Tony Jones blog. He articulates much that I can empathise with in a clear and simple manner.

If I could talk to my 17-year-old self, I would say that I still believe that God is at work in my life, but maybe not in the same way that a 17-year-old understands. I would tell him that I still experience the authority of scripture, but I don’t find that authority in the words of scripture, but in the Event to whom scripture testifies. And I would say that I have not substituted human reason for revelation, but realize that I can only understand the revelation in human, fallible, finite ways, and that it is a mistake to think that anyone’s theology is every entirely adequate to express the revelation of the Infinite.

But above all, I would tell my gnostic-leaning 17-year-old self, it’s more important to be a true follower of Christ and actually act in Christlike ways than it is to have what you think is the correct theology. Ideas matter, but real, living human beings matter more. Don’t forget Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 13:1-3:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love I gain nothing.

via Theoblogy