Apparently I'm Not Dying

Yesterday as I was walking around the house watering plants, Olga came into the dining room. She was smacking her lips as if she'd been chewing something. I didn't think much of it, because we keep dry food available to her all the time in her bowl.

But no -- she was eating bird food. When I came into the living room, I saw that she'd nosed her way into our stash of suet balls meant for the bird feeder. There was suet-ball shrapnel all over the floor. She's normally very good about not eating things that aren't meant for her, so I don't know what possessed her this time -- except that we keep the suet ball container on the floor, which in Olga's mind must have made it fair game.

Anyway, the suet and sunflower seeds haven't done her any harm.

Fortunately I hadn't yet cleaned the house, so that came next, as well as mowing the lawn. The picture above was taken before I mowed. I had to fence off our little teasel plot with string because Olga has decided it's a wonderful place to roll in the long grass, and I got tired of having to rehabilitate flattened teasels. You can kind of see my makeshift fence on the left in the background.

In between the cleaning and mowing, I sat out in the garden reading "Feral Borough" by Meryl Pugh, a book that I picked up when visiting blogger Linda Sue during her stay in Dulwich last December. It's an interesting volume about appreciating urban wilderness. Pugh writes about the history and creatures she encounters in her corner of East London, similar to the urban wildlife I often encounter here: birds and foxes and wandering housecats.

I also took Olga on our standard walk around the local housing estate, where she once again stalked the cats beneath the blue door. Every time I doubt her vim and vigor, she shows me she's still got it.

Finally, in the afternoon, I had to go for my endoscopy. You may remember I've been having a lot of stomach discomfort -- this is also why I had the CT scan last week. The endoscopy meant I couldn't eat after breakfast yesterday, and couldn't drink liquids after noon or so. Dave went with me to the hospital and after paperwork and explanations, I was zonked out on 50 micrograms of fentanyl. The next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery.

I've often wondered if I'd be able to keep up my blog, were I hospitalized for any length of time. I guess it's possible to take a colorful photo even in a hospital!

Anyway, the endoscopy apparently found nothing alarming. I say "apparently" because there are still routine biopsies being done, but the only thing the doctor noted in her report is that I have a hiatal hernia, as well as "non-erosive" gastritis. Which I take to mean that I don't have any ulcers or other visible deterioration of stomach tissue.

Of course this is a huge relief, because, y'all, I thought I was dying. I have literally been walking around like a zombie the past couple of weeks envisioning a terrible fate at the hands of my stomach. (Not that my stomach has hands.)

There's still the gastritis to deal with, and as we've discussed my inflammation markers are elevated, so I'll talk to the doctors in my followup appointment about how to handle that. I'm cutting back on alcohol and I suppose I may have to watch my coffee intake as well. (Sigh!)

Ironic, then, that the first thing Dave and I did upon being released from the endoscopy unit was go to Starbucks. But hey, I was celebrating. And I was hungry. If I'm not immediately dying, I want to LIVE.

Which brings me back to Pugh's "Feral Borough," and a passage that spoke to me as I was reading in the garden yesterday morning: 

"To live in the feral borough then is to be in kinship with everything outside my door. Jackdaws on the bus shelter roof. Someone's snuffling dog, straining against the lead. Those feral pigeons -- a fitting emblem for this book -- following a buzzard over the terraced streets, keeping the predator firmly in view. That counterpoint between the rare and ordinary, wild and domestic and whatever lies between the two is part of what I love about my home. Living here has taught me so much: To be with both nature and the city, noise and quiet, life and death, to hold all that, all at the same time. Because we humans are feral too, and life is brief."