How green was my valley?

Blogger uses a map like the one below to show you your/one one’s readership. The more readers you have/one has from a particular country, the darker green the country appears on the map:

And even though my Feedjit Recent Visitors thingy over there in the sidebar shows that I do indeed have readers from Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand, apparently there are not enough of you to make a difference on the green map. In spite of comments left frequently on my posts by the likes of Katherine de Chevalle, Carol in Cairns, Helsie, and Elephant’s Child, according to Blogger’s green map nothing much is happening down under.

Which brings me to yesterday and my long-awaited enteroscopy.

Smooth segue, huh?

I had been told that the entereroscopy (which turned out to be of the single-balloon variety rather than double-balloon or spiral) was like a “long colonoscopy.” Instead, the good doctor decided to go in from above first (a “long endoscopy”) and enter from the other direction only if he couldn't reach the ilium from above. Turns out the “from above” approach was successful, so even though the previous evening I had prepped diligently for a colonoscopy, no colonoscopy was necessary.

Afterward, the good doctor showed me lots of pictures of my innards (esophagus, stomach, duodenum, jejunum, ilium -- I won’t make you look) including a mass (2 cm) in the ilium that he said could be a lipoma. They tattooed it so that they can find it again easily in case they need to go back in and remove it at some point in the future. A biopsy was performed to be sent to the lab for analysis, but for now the good doctor believes the mass/lipoma/tumor/whatever-the-heck-it-is is benign.

Snow and others of his persuasion should stop reading now. The rest of you may continue.

Thanks be to God.

I have not blogged much of late

...but that doesn’t mean nothing is going on. Life goes on, constantly, until it doesn't any more. Mine is still a work in progress.

Mrs. RWP and I went to see the movie Saving Mr. Banks.

Mrs. RWP and I went to see our granddaughter in a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance at her school.

Mrs. RWP and I made a trip by automobile to our daughter’s home in Alabamistan and stayed a few days.

Mrs. RWP and I attended the NCAA Signing Day brunch put on by the Cherokee County School District for graduating seniors (12th-year students) from the six high schools in the county who have committed to participating in a college athletics program for the fall. Our oldest grandson was one of 56 students recognized this year. His sport is baseball. About 250 parents, grandparents, and little brothers and sisters attended the brunch.

So we have been able to visit with all of our children and grandchildren in the past couple of weeks.

In between times we have been treated to endured two snow and ice storms that paralyzed the region. Perhaps you heard about them.

I have also been preparing myself mentally and physically for another (and, it is hoped, the last) “procedure” to be performed upon my person by the gastroenterology segment of the medical profession. Two days hence I shall be undergoing an enteroscopy (which my spies tell me is like a colonoscopy, only longer, the enteroscope going all the way into the small intestine). My old friend Wikipedia tells me that there are three types of enteroscopies -- single-balloon, double-balloon, and spiral (don’t ask).

In December I underwent a wireless capsule endoscopy in which one swallows a camera and waits for something interesting to develop, the main result of which, since it is a diagnostic tool only, was the scheduling of the forthcoming enteroscopy so that the aforementioned gastroenterologists can obtain a biopsy of something they thought they saw.

The fun and games continue apace.

I will spare you the details of the final preparation process except to say that I should emerge lighter, but wiser, on Friday.

When you come to the end of a perfect year

...let me know, will ya? Because it will definitely be a first.

This year was definitely less than perfect from my own personal perspective, dealing as I did with (among other things) a seven-month-long bout with shingles; its evil twin, post-herpetic neuralgia; the death of a dog; a week-long hospital stay that included an endoscopy, a colonoscopy, two blood transfusions, and the medical team of Thelma and Louise; and finally, in December, an out-patient procedure that involved my swallowing a camera and walking around all day wearing a monitor that continuously blinked yellow, green, and blue, which prevented me from entering a grocery store or a schoolyard or a commercial establishment of any kind for fear that I would be mistaken for someone with a bomb and tackled to the ground. As Jack Paar used to say, I kid you not.

Other than that, Ma, 2013 was a year like all other years, except (as Walter Cronkite said on many occasions) “YOU ARE THERE.”

But the world is bigger than my own personal interaction with it. Our own national treasure, humorist Dave Barry, has captured the year 2013, at least from an American perspective, in his own inimitable style in this column, which I heartily recommend to you. It is impossible in some places to discern Mr. Barry’s words from events that actually occurred.

I am facing yet another medical procedure on January 10th, after the completion of which it would be just fine with me if I never had to visit a gastroenterologist ever again.

Interesting fact #17,643: MoviPrep has absolutely nothing to do with attending the cinema, unless you are a gastroenterologist, and then in only the most tangential way.

You are now ready for 2014.

Interesting fact #17,644: If you lived in the American South, you would need to have ham hocks, hog jowl, blackeyed peas, and some form of greens (turnip or collard preferred) at the ready for your New Year’s Day dining pleasure. Don’t ask why. Some things are just self-evident.