Memento Mori

In another memento mori today (link offered for a fascinating Wikipedia entry), a visit to the hospital for a "procedure." Well, why be coy? It's a colonoscopy. Last night--and again this morning early, the joys of a Fleet enema. Clear liquids only all day yesterday, and nothing at all this morning--unless you count the enema. The reward, I hope, will be a good cleaning-out of the body within and, with any luck, a clean bill of health in a general area where I had to have an intrusive polyp removed a few years ago.

It will be a good time, too, to practice a little Buddhist equanimity! I do dislike having to surrender to the mercies of hospital staff--and to their timetable, which is usually annoyingly different from my own. My own says NOW. Theirs says, After the doctor has taken care of this emergency; or, more simply, Whenever we get around to it. All this on top of the indignity of that dreadful gown that opens down the back and the manhandling on funereal gurneys--not to mention the insertion of foreign objects into veins, and other places preferably left untouched.

Ah, well. I will try to remind myself that there are far worse reasons for being in a hospital than a simple colonoscopy, and to feel sorrier for others than for me. And, of course, to breathe. Wish me luck!