Apparently sedation doesn't work well on gingers

"Some studies suggest that redheads, or people with ginger hair, may be harder to sedate and may need more anesthesia than others," the Google AI overview tells me.

I can confirm that this is true, as yesterday, mid colonoscopy, I was fully alert and experiencing a good deal of pain. But, before we get into that story, let me bring you up to speed.

In July of 2023, I was sitting in a hospital bed, wondering why I had to wear one of those blue surgical caps when they were clearly going to remove it to do an operation on my head. In 30 minutes, I was scheduled to have a silver dollar sized melanoma removed from my scalp.

The anesthesiologist came in and read me the obligatory risk sheet, which ironically, always includes death. Only during surgeries to remove cancer that can kill you, does that seem funny.

I was given the magical cocktail of drugs through an IV, and away we rolled into the operating room. I'm guessing most people would be out cold by this point. However, I was lucid enough to notice how "not like on TV" this room looked. It seemed crowded, with racks and equipment all over the place. I exchanged a few words with my surgeon before something else was administered to me. Thankfully, I was fully out before they took off my blue hat.

One week later we were at it again. The pathology revealed that I had clear margins on the surgical site, so now it was time to close the wound. The only problem is, you don't have much flexibility in your scalp. So, they cut me all the way around, like you would cut into an orange peel to get the top off. It's called a scalp resection. Don't look it up if you are eating lunch.

One thing I forgot to mention is that on the blue hat day, I had also paid a visit to Nuclear Medicine, where I was injected with isotopes. During the cancer removal, they used some sort of medical Geiger counter to trace where the radiation drained. They ended up removing lymph nodes to make sure the cancer hadn't metastasized.

Back to orange peal day. I was feeling pretty optimistic. Besides the fact that I was about to have a pretty gnarly scalp surgery, and aside from the inflamed incision behind my right ear, I felt like we were getting to the end of a scary experience. I had all but forgotten about those lymph nodes.

So, another few days later when I got the call that cancer was found in the lymph, I was stunned. I didn't see that one coming. I went from being a ginger with too much sun exposure, to a cancer patient. Stage 3A to be precise.

My new oncologist told me that both surgeries had been successful in fully removing the cancer, and the present course of action was to watch and wait. This involved having a PET scan every three months. When two of the last three scans revealed some sort of increased activity in the colon, guess what this lucky girl got to do?

Prepping for a colonoscopy isn't for sissies. I, as it turns out, am a sissy. The gallon of goop that you have to drink in order to free your bowels from any trace of the good life, is exactly what you would imagine, with precisely the outcome that you'd imagine. It's a real pain in the @$$. Alright, look, if I can't get away with a colonoscopy pun now, why bother?

That brings us back to yesterday and my fully lucid procedure. I'm listening to the doctor and nurses discuss how many polyps they had removed. Someone lost count. Upon review, it was 24 all together. 24!! I really didn't see that one coming. While there was considerable pain in my abdomen, I'm not sure what percentage of my tears were caused by discomfort vs. the tears of frustration and anger over what I just heard.

So now what? More waiting. Waiting for pathology. Waiting to find out if this was just a freakishly large cluster of polyps, or if it's something much more serious. Waiting to learn if my 3A turns into something else.

As I sat at work this morning, a colleague casually asked me how I was doing. It's hard to answer a question like that when you are fresh off the colonoscopy table. However, I felt like downplayed honesty was the way to go. He listened compassionately.

In a soft voice, he asked me, "Well, what do you like to do in your free time?" I reflected for a moment and then said something about going on walks and writing. He quickly looked up some writing prompts and handed me his phone. I scanned the content and saw something about a writing contest involving the prompt "I didn't see that one coming." No truer words could have been said for my experiences over the last year or so.

While I hate waiting, and I hate cancer, there is one thing that I've come to appreciate in this season--good people who really want to help. Whether it's bringing a meal, buying me a wig, or encouraging me to write, I'm so very thankful for the beautiful people in my life who love and care for me.

Of course it's lovely to have good people in good times. After my recent experiences, I might argue that it's better, or at least more impactful, to have good people in not so good times. A listening ear, a genuine concern, and a writing prompt can be a blessing indeed.

In closing I have three pieces of advice: wear a hat and sunscreen, be willing to be the butt of the joke if you've just had a colonoscopy, and ask good questions.