Open Writing

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy. Spelled just like it sounds. Meaning is clear if you read or say it carefully:

Esophago -- pertaining to the esophagus; gastro -- having to do with the stomach; duodeno -- and the duodenum; scopy -- Viewing by means of an instrument or tool.

EGD is the acronym commonly used in speaking or writing informally about the procedure.

One of those things you really don’t want to know well enough to call by its nickname.

Do you know what ‘spelunking’ means? As in crawling down a hole to see where it goes and whether you can get back? With nothing but a rope and a flashlight? And a camera so you can prove that you were really crazy enough to do that?

Well, on a smaller scale, that’s what Esophagogastroduodenoscopy is.

The doctor, or whoever is the designated esophagogastroduodenoscopist for this trip, pokes a small tool on a rope, equipped with a light and a camera, down your throat and takes a bunch of digital photos which cause all the initiated and anointed to say, “Hmm,” and “Ah yes!” and maybe “Did you ever see anything like that puppy?” Maybe the ‘scopist will call to his assistant, “Hey Betsy, would you please send down my geologist’s hammer and a number twelve blunt-tipped chisel?”

Then they wake you up, and in the presence of your designated driver, ask: “Did you ever have this before?” When you reply, “gllubbglog!” they opine,

“Well, you got it again.”

Dr. Fogel is a nice guy, and he and the group of ladies who assist him all seem to be good people who know what they’re doing. And they seem to have fixed my problem almost immediately. As a certified layman, about all I can say is, “Well, shucks, gol durn, hooda thunk it?”

Maybe so

I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us. -Konrad Lorenz, ethnologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)

I’d better go look

Something is causing a bunch of birds to keep gathering around a spot on the edge of the road just across from my mailbox. Starlings, I believe. As an experienced rubber-necker of long standing, I’m going to have to check it out.

Well, no news is good news, in this case. Nothing visible to my eyes. I was afraid it might have been one of my regulars at the Coon Café.

I had a nice little exchange with my old friend Tillie; the raccoon we know is older than any of the specialists say a raccoon living wild is likely to be. I saw her as I was on my way to the bathroom. She was tucked in to the cat food like she was really hungry. But still using her well-bred table manners which make her easy to recognize. I flipped on the big lights; she glanced up and looked for me at the kitchen door. I turned on the inside light and waved. She tossed her head and went back to the food dish.

When she finished, she walked over near the porch, stopped, and looked my way. I turned on the kitchen light again, and waved my hand. She stayed for a minute, looking at me, then resumed her walk towards the front yard. She looked thinner than the last time I saw her. It’s about time for them to start dropping their litters. Wonder if she did it again?

The 1937 flood

In 1937 the Indiana residents along the Ohio River endured a flood that reached 53.74 feet above flood stage. Forty-six percent of the town of Evansville was under water. No record has survived (or even been made) as to how many casualties there were because of this flood. Thousands of Hoosiers were left homeless and property damage was likely in the millions of dollars.

*From Awesome Almanac Indiana by Nancy Jacobson, B&B Publishing, 1993.

I remember that flood. The newspapers and radio news were full of stories. They brought many families of refugees from Ohio, Southern Indiana, and Kentucky up to Indianapolis. Many of them were housed in the old National Guard Armory. That’s how our friend Harold Durham and his family came here from Kentucky.

When the flood was gone, so was their house, and tools, and really their whole business. They were self-employed painters and decorators, his Dad and older brothers. Somehow they had salvaged one pickup truck, and with begged and borrowed tools they started over. Two of the older boys were married, but they all lived in that one two-bedroom house, until they could get enough money for the older ones to leave.

The Ohio and Mississippi rivers were flooded for hundreds of miles. My best friend Bill had some cousins who lived in Cincinnati. I remember several years later Bill and a bunch of us drove down there, and they showed us the high-water marks near the window ledges of the second story of their brick house. They just moved everything up from the first floor and waited it out. Not much else to do. And they were several blocks from the river.

I think the National Guard and the Army did help with sandbagging, and then helped haul the displaced people up north to refugee centers. But they didn’t sit around poor-mouthing and feeling sorry for themselves.

They dug in and did all they could before they asked for help.

You younger folks, like me, may remember your grandpa or grandma telling how their family got flooded and wound up as refugees in Indianapolis or somewhere around here.

Their stories may have improved some with age, as such stories do, but basically, it was all true.