Colonoscopy Alternatives

When my younger brother arrived home early last evening from wherever he had been drinking, I was upstairs here at my computer. But I could hear him interacting with my eldest stepson, and my brother sounded in fair spirits.

I was still working on that day's post in this blog, so I was not yet ready to go downstairs to watch T.V. with my brother. I have the role of oprator of our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, so until I do join him, he has to settle for whatever he can find of any interest within the T.V.'s basic cable package.

I was interrupted by my eldest stepson ─ it developed that his younger brother had a video call from their mother, who is over in Thailand visiting her own mother. My wife wanted to speak with me.

So downstairs I went to the boys' den area and took the call from my youngest stepson.

It doesn't seem that my wife has quite yet decided when she will be returning here to Canada, for she asked me to phone her dentist and cancel a May 10 appointment.

She also said that she had tried to call me through Facebook while I was at my computer, but I didn't happen to be logged into Facebook and thus was unaware.

Upon returning here to my computer, I did log into that social media website, and  proceeded to send my wife some text via Messenger or whatever the service in Facebook is called.

I explained something that I was unsure her eldest son had yet apprised her ─ viz., that her income tax refund had arrived by direct deposit on Thursday, and he had said to use it to cover the shortfall in our chequing balance for the monthly mortgage debit that will occur either today or more likely tomorrow (it normally happens on the 22nd, but today is Easter Monday, a banking holiday).

The account was just over $1,000 deficient for meeting the mortgage, whereas her income tax refund was in excess of $1,300. Until the arrival of her income tax refund, her sons had been expected to meet the shortfall.

But now it seems that they preferred to contribute nothing, and let their mother take the entire hit. However, the eldest lad said that they would transfer her some money any time she might need any.

I explained this via that text message.

Whether my wife fully understood, I cannot certainly say, but this was her reply:

Should be enough for now I try not spend anymore so when I come back I have to pay back my debt  thank you so much, take care I see your guys next mine talk to you soon

The debt she is referring to is the enormous escalation from something over $17,000 of our house mortgage's line of credit to the maxed out limit of something over $60,000 in just over a five-month period ending just before her trip back to Thailand.

I had only learned about it by the time it was too late to do aught.

And now our chequing account is being hit with interest payments of over $230 that leave me no room to add anything else to try and start bringing the crushing debt down.

Her sons are both now well aware of this foolishness of hers, too.

So in response to her message above, I texted:

Yes, the four of us are going to have to have a big conversation about that after your are settled back here. 

And she responded:

Can you tell my kids don’t to though on me specially [her youngest son, the 21-year-old] 

I believe she likely meant to try and have her boys not be too tough on her.

I simply replied, "I'll try!"

And she merely responded with a 'thumbs up' emoji.

Anyway, with that interaction done, I was ready to go downstairs and have some pizza that the youngest lad had ordered, and join my brother at the T.V. in the living room.

But he was already passed out, and it wasn't even 8:30 p.m.

That was his one chance. I would not be seeking his company any further that evening. If he cannot manage to control his drinking enough to retain his senses, I want naught to do with his company.

And so I came back up here to have my meal.

Anon he did revive and came upstairs to use the bathroom; and in passing on his return to the living room, he said to me, "Aren't you going to watch anything tonight, or...?"

I retorted, "I already tried."

But I don't think he understood, or else didn't clearly hear me, as he made his way down the stairs.

That was the last of our interaction.

I felt rather guilty, for he seemed civil enough; but this habit of his to drink himself insensible so regularly is most vexing.

I was into my bed by about 9:14 p.m.

However, I swear that it must have taken me at least two hours to get to sleep. There was that guilt I spoke of, but I was also worrying about my debt, and even thoughts of my considered extermination sometime during the year following my next birthday this coming Fall flooded my mind.

Thoughts came from all directions, as did the main verses of a pair of Walker Brothers' songs that evoke remembrances of myself in my late teens in the latter 1960s and my 20s back in the 1970s when life vacillated between me feeling so very much hope and promise, to me being in such despair that I often pondered suicide even then.

Those two Walker Brothers songs would be foremost on any playlist I might put together if ever I wanted a musical escort into my oblivion.

I was so lonely in my younger life. Yet even now that I live in a household of five, I still feel keenly alone.

The two songs?

Well, provided the YouTube links work, they are "Make It Easy on Yourself" and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore."

The first is so plaintive to me, and expresses quite precisely what I wish I could sing to my wife in lieu of saying good-bye ─ we have not been intimate in over six years.

And of course, the second describes exactly what it feels like to think of oneself as being hopelessly all alone ─ insofar as one's own perspective is concerned.

No dreams can ever come true for me without some incredibly miraculous financial windfall. I am 69 years old, and losing those dreams along with youth, health, and everything else that makes life worth the living.

Quite coincidentally to this, I have only just discovered that the lead singer in that group ─ he known professionally as Scott Walker ─ died exactly a month ago at the age of 76.

He had such a beautiful singing voice.

Only one of the three members of the group still lives.

Anyway, after finally getting a short bout of sleep, I got up shortly after 1:00 a.m. just to turn on and log back into my computer to have it ready for later use.

I returned to bed, but sleep wasn't interested in me.

Thus, ere it was yet 2:00 a.m., I was up and at work on the day's content assignment for the post I have under construction at one of my six hosted websites.

I held to that task until the job was complete, and returned to bed sometime after 6:00 a.m.

Sleep still was not easy to find, but ultimately some did arrive. Yet by 9:30 a.m. I was ready to rise once more and start my morning.

I was surprised to find it raining; and light rain probably held the day.

At 10:00 a.m. I joined my younger brother in the living room and used our Android TV Box to provide us some entertainment.

He sat through both the fourth and final episode ("Sweethearts of the Rodeo") of a BBC documentary series titled Lost Highway: The Story of Country Music; and then the Allan Savory documentary Running out of Time that I located on YouTube (our Android TV Box has a YouTube 'app' downloaded into it).

We finished up with a T.V. series episode that I had cancelled out of Thursday evening because ─ again ─ I had seen that my brother had passed out.

Once the episode was done ─ and my brother clearly found it most interesting ─ he went on upstairs to his bedroom to rest up so that he could go off before mid-afternoon and end up drinking somewhere.

While he was perhaps napping, I took the opportunity to have some exercise with my 43½-pound dumbbell.

By the way, today is Easter Monday, but my eldest stepson must have gone to work this morning. And his younger brother headed off around midday. He has a job requiring shift work, and as such does not have actual statutory holidays; instead, I believe that he gets an alternate day off in lieu of any such scheduled day off.

But the banks are apparently on holiday ─ the monthly mortgage did not get debited today (as is usually done on the 22nd of each month).

With my mindset regarding my life, it probably should not surprise anyone that I have never had a colonoscopy, nor do I ever intend to have one.

Heck, I won't even bother with the alternative discussed in this short article:

JacksDailyDose.com

Hate Colonoscopies? There’s Another Way…

Nevertheless, I did so a wee bit of research on behalf of those of us living in the U.S. and Canada.

For Americans, here are two webpages talking about the test and how to go about getting lined up for one:

• Cancer.org: Colorectal Cancer Screening Tests
• Cancer.org: Insurance Coverage for Colorectal Cancer Screening

And for Canadians:

• ColorectalCancerCanada.com: Seven alternatives to a colonscopy

And for British Columbians specifically:

• BCcancer.BC.ca: What is the FIT? 

That original article made it sound as if this was a test anyone could stay home and have done, somehow sending off the results for testing ─ this was why I looked into it. In fact, it sounded just about as simple as having one of those genealogical DNA tests done.

I had wondered what the cost would be for getting a test performed upon one's 'sample' at some distant laboratory.

As is so very often the scenario, things are seldom as simple as they initially appear.

I want to be done today's post and get on with a thing or two other than just sitting here typing at my computer.

Before taking my leave, I have four photos I want to post that were taken on February 25, 2018 ─ probably in the city of Udon Thani ─ on the day a niece of my wife got married.

The niece is the daughter of Lumpoon, one of my wife's two sisters. And it is Lumpoon who is the only person I am able to identify in this set of four photos ─ she is the woman in the yellow dress and standing in the centre of the group, with a little boy just in front of her: