I’ve been joking about “learning to poo again” as part of the recovery process post-takedown surgery. Well, it seems that I still know how. Things suddenly started happening Sunday evening via the traditional channel. I knew this wasn’t unheard of – the colon still produces mucus, it’s gotta go somewhere – but very disconcerting. Imagine your home phone started ringing after you’ve canceled service and the receiver is boxed up in the basement. And it keeps happening all night. That part worried Lisa and I.

Jules was working an overnight at Hopkins ER, so I texted her. In the morning, she got back to me, delivering the soon-to-be-classic line: “The rectum keeps its own counsel.” It seems that shit, or mucus, really does just happen.

This was a lovely start to a week was chock full of doctor appointments and procedures. Tuesday was the all-day event, starting at 7:30am for a sigmoidoscopy. This is basically a colonoscopy by a different name. You stick a camera up my butt and I don’t care what you call it, just hurry up and finish. Please!

The last blog post delved into the strangeness of looking at live action footage of your innerspace. This scoping was different for a couple of reasons: 1. I decided to forgo the twilight so I was fully awake and feeling it all. 2. I knew what things in there looked like before. If there was anything new or odd, I’d be seeing it and could ask questions.

As the camera started doing its thing, I couldn’t decide which analogy I liked more: my colon as the musty wing of a British manor house closed off for the winter or as a sunken ship being explored in a mini-sub created by that jackass director James Cameron. The latter is more visually close, but something about Victorian furniture covered with white sheets seems more elegant and metaphorically correct. Shut down for a bit, then opened up again once the cobwebs and dust bunnies get swept out.

The glint of metal in the shape of the letter B surprised me. I immediately thought of that horrible story about the doctor that carved his initials on a patient’s scar, but my surgeon’s initials are NA. Then I thought of B for Bob, and then I realized it was a staple. This was the site of the dissection. I have no frame of reference, but it looked good to me.

Being a day like this and everything else is downhill. Even a foul-up that made me have two bloodtests instead of one and almost made Lisa late for a meeting was OK. The news we were positive news from the surgeon and the physician’s assistant. Surgery date was held for July 7th, time as of yet unknown.

The next day I had an appointment with Steve-O, the medical oncologist. This was sort of unrelated to the takedown, more of a 3 month follow-up from the surgery to look at the CT Scan, do some more bloodtests, and discuss the results. As the nurses took my vitals, one of them had a clip from the CBS Early Show on from that morning. It was about a pancreatic cancer vaccine developed at Hopkins. One nurse knew him from frequent visits, and quickly told his story: stomach pains led to a Stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Nightmare scenario. Steve-O appeared on the screen, talking about the trial and how it worked. (Steve-O appears 1:30 in the clip)

A few minutes later, Steve-O came.

“Just saw you on TV,” I said. “They were just watching it up there.”

Steve-O sighed. “Then I’ll stay back here.”

For insurance reasons, the CT Scans are done at Union Memorial, so I have a CD copy of it that I physically delivered to the surgeon the day before. A report was supposed to accompany it, which I wasn’t given. Lisa is much better at questioning bureaucracy and hectoring them into getting their act together, meaning that I should have listened to them and called Union to get the report faxed over to Hopkins. So Steve-O had bloodtest results, which were good and clear, but needed the CT Scan report, so the visit was a partial one.

Later that day, Hopkins called with the time for the surgery: 7:30am on Wednesday, July 7. Be there for prep at 5:30am, liquid diet the day before. Steve-O emailed while I was sitting on the porch on an internal conference call with my team in Chicago. The report appeared and showed no abnormal findings. I was clear and the takedown was set. I told my team what had just happened, added a “Suck It, Cancer” for good measure.