Tubing Down the Gullet

The Weight of Anticipation

Anxiety is a weight. It sits on your chest and bears down regardless of whether you are lying down, sitting, or standing. Anxiety also signals that the issues of life, though measurable in the brain, are situated in the chest cavity where your heart and lungs reside.

For instance, when you feel confident, you are likely to beat your chest rather than slap your head. Slapping your head, it turns out, is an act of self-deprecation in recognition of one's silliness or foolishness. Anticipation can create anxiety, and nothing quite causes that feeling of foreboding like the hours just before a long-scheduled medical procedure.

Lessons from a Previous Encounter

With hindsight, two years ago, after a multiparametric MRI scan, the consultant sprang a biopsy of my prostate gland on me without first reviewing the results or explaining the reasons. Even so, I was quite well prepared for the encounter.

I asked questions, demanded answers, and only acquiesced to the procedure once I was convinced of the need. The importance of reading up on your medical situation is paramount.

A Portmanteau of Procedures

Tomorrow, I am going for an Oesophagogastroduodenoscopy. I could have sworn that is not a word, but welcome to the world of medical terms that suggest a portmanteau of activities. The word reminds me of German, where portmanteau words are joined up with the letter "S". I would suppose, with medical terms, it is the letter "O", much like when I had that inguinoscrotal abscess last month.

In summary: I am having an endoscopy that will reach down through my oesophagus, past the gastrointestinal junction, to the first and shortest section of my small intestine. I have not deigned to measure that in miles, but it feels like a long way down to places never before visited, rather like the first landing on the moon.

Why This Procedure Is Necessary

This is pursuant to an investigation that presaged my visit to A&E after a choking incident which impacted my ability to swallow anything, including fluids, for hours. I was eventually discharged about five hours into my hospital attendance, after managing a sandwich and a drink. Taken alongside a history of choking events going back decades, and three such incidents since that discharge, this procedure is necessary.

Herewith, the cause of my anxiety: without a chaperone, I can only elect for the most basic palliative, which would be a numbing spray to the back of the throat, rather than a sedative.

Finding Peace

I believe I shall be fine. I suppose it is just part of human nature to be slightly concerned at that kind of invasive activity, and it is not helped by a mind full of others recounting their own endoscopic odyssey.

Shalom! Peace to my mind, peace to my soul, peace to my thoughts, peace through it all.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

In preparation

Looking ahead

The mind is in a state of preparation and anticipation of several things, events, and expectations, that you begin to set your sights upon aims, goals, and milestones as the passage of time brings things closer to the activity and the fulfilment.

On the professional front, there is something scheduled and the other undefined that might determine the action to take which has been in consideration for a while. For the scheduled, study and exercise are required that one has not been able to focus on until now, whilst the other needs to run the gauntlet of extensive bureaucracies before a decision is made.

Scripting life

Personally, the things of the heart are ringing in a countdown that brings a smile, warmth, and that sense of companionship that is limited by circumstances we hope to assail in due course. Then broadly, we are involved in the preparations that others have for their futures as we hope to secure and assure the fortunes of others.

I guess this is what the story of life is all about, the situation, the preparation, the execution or participation, the fulfilment that opens the vista to the new, the possible, the achievable and the attainable. It is a blessing and a thing of gratitude that one can plan without being caught up in the immediacy of the present as both a distraction and impediment. We are as it happens; a story being written.

Thought Picnic: Knowing where you are from where you imagine you are

Cool this thing down

I remember attending an interview decades ago for a role that honestly paid peanuts with the European Space Agency, it was nothing as promising as if I were invited to work or even do an internship at NASA, the two men in weather-worn suits probably blasted too many times by solar flares and moon dust posed questions to which I responded earnestly and knowledgeably, but I somehow did not impress them.

When the agency got back to me, the report was, I was too laid back, I think I saw that more as a compliment than a criticism, my thinking was, if I was involved in putting a rocket under someone to send them out to space, we need cool heads, not hotheads. In fact, I take pride in being professionally laid back and that does not mean being lazy.

Easy on the busy

I just do not like to be carried away by the clamour and the tumult that surrounds issues, problems, or emergencies at work. We need to be able to stand back to see what is going on, gather our thoughts and methodically approach the issue. After applying ourselves for a full day at work, I would rather we return early the next day after a good break with fresh heads and ideas, beavering away overnight is the stuff of diminishing returns. Lots of activity and no achievement.

It is probably a temperament thing, usually observed at work, but applicable to other areas of my life, I can anticipate, but I do not fret; I could be concerned, but refrain from worrying; when it seems, a situation is getting too much, I would go to bed instead and sleep it over. The things I can control I apply myself to, and the things I at the time am clueless about, I can accept as my contemporaneous incapacity or infirmity, if things change for the better, that is fine, otherwise, we move on.

You are where you are

I guess the way I view things is only to cross the bridge when I am at the bridge, if I am still on the journey to the bridge, there might be circumstances where, in encounter or in realisation, the bridge is just one option out of many to choose from, in which case, it might be easier to ford, to swim, or to ferry, you might even avoid having to cross any obstacle to your destination. You have to know where you are from where you imagine or fear you are.

We are given the moment with all the vicissitudes of life and uncertainty to already deal with, success and progress with that particular moment can determine how well the rest of your journey goes. Like in the game of chess, much as you can think 10 moves ahead, you cannot play the 10 moves in a go.

Be ready and able to change tack

You have to play your move and your opponent play theirs, their move might not have been accounted for in your analysis and then you have to recalibrate the whole strategy you have towards winning the game in which you might well get beaten, no matter how good your imagined 10 moves ahead were.

This applies to many things in life, for the preparation, anticipation, and orderliness in the things we have planned, we need to make allowances for sudden or progressive alterations that could be quite impactful and outside our control. This is not to say we are then helpless against fate, not by the kind of intellect, initiative, and intuitiveness that we have been gifted, we are adaptable, applying ourselves with a good understanding of when a scalpel, a blade, a knife, or a sword is needed.

That is a skill that comes from learning, experience, expertise, mentoring, or just sheer luck, it does not matter, we keep living because we are living and, in the process, write a better story of how we have lived. Selah!

Hearts do leap

Plans in cans

One can view the year 2020 as a veritable tale of the completely unexpected and completely unanticipated. You can only wonder if any of the resolutions made for the year by those wont to such activities even found the opportunity to kick off.

Even so, consider plans to marry, plans to travel, desires to see, do, get, give or transact some business, event, or any kind of endeavour, literally hamstrung by situations outside our control. Such is the effect this pandemic has had on most of the world. There is some return to normalcy in places where the leaders, the people, and the policies worked to contain and manage the Coronavirus, but we are nowhere near seeing the back of this plague.

Consider the disorder

Yet, we must find ways to live our lives and go about our business with a precautionary inclination to protect ourselves and our communities from being ravaged. Whatever people might believe, and some have sniffed and scoffed about this pandemic, 1,570,333 people as of today who saw in 2020 are no more due to COVID-19 disease. If that does not evince a pause for thought, probably nothing else will.

My tender heart over the years has loved and lost, there were times when I was at the point of acceptance that this thing called love happened to other people until I was unwittingly swept off my feet by an Adonis who in my wildest dreams would not have reckoned a fleeting glance of sight, talk less of being noticed.

Alert my heart

He became the prime mover, out of interest and daring he observed me for a while before approaching me and saying hello. A conversation, a lunch date, a meeting of hearts and minds, a burgeoning relationship and 2019 was livened with his company and companionship, I convinced myself beyond any doubt that this is the one. I found love in a hopeless place that gave life to hope I could never have had the courage to entertain.

My heart races, a feeling of expectation and anticipation, the preparation for a rendezvous is apace, we have many hurdles to surmount as things we did on a whim now requires planning, scheduling, deliberate consideration, and strategy, all of which we hope to breeze through to the point of our loving embrace. I am buoyed, love is beautiful, life is good, and God is on our side, for which we are all extremely thankful.