GOING UNDER

I guess the news was good. The doctor called me to tell me I have something called a granular cell tumor on my esophagus. Benign. 1cm. Not a big deal. We'll check it out in a year. Okay, great. I have to get sedated and have plastic shoved down my throat on an annual basis. This is it. Now it begins. Time to go on high alert with every tweak and pain. The slow crawl to the grave. Yeah, baby. 

I actually work the denial pretty well, especially when asked about it by those not in my immediate family. Still, it's a pretty hard slap at my completely irrational vision of a future in which my generation will live to be 200. 

It started with a visit to my doctor. I mentioned I had a small bit of discomfort while swallowing and he ordered X-rays. As a lovely parting gift, he told me he wanted to monitor my blood pressure since it seemed a bit high. 

Tickticktick. The X-rays come back and it's time to go to the hospital and have 30 minutes of my life wiped from my memory, thanks to the drugs used to knock me out. I wake up and have no sense that there was any intrusion into my body. I think the scariest part of any surgery are those moments leading up to the big event, when you are drilled with questions and a series of documents are shoved before you. I signed them, knowing  even without reading that they were largely clearing the hospital of wrongdoing should I accidently die from the anaesthetic. Whoops! But those guys are doctors. What, me worry?

But the doctor speaketh, and he gave me the clean bill. Easy for him to say.