A good day

I woke up today feeling pretty good. The persistent sharp pain in my abdomen was gone, I wasn't feeling nauseous and I didn't have bloating or diarrhea. There was a definite spring to my step when I headed off to work.

The morning went as it usually does, a mixture of boredom, stress and concentration. I went off to Safeway to find something low-fibre to eat as I was supposed to start on a special diet in advance of my colonoscopy next Tuesday. Lo and behold, I found a low-fibre chicken carbonara frozen dinner that fit the bill and grabbed a package of surimi sticks (rolls of flavoured haddock made to look like crabmeat) to add more protein. It was a good, tasty lunch, better than what I was expecting.

I worked for a bit and started feeling a little tired. I looked out the window and saw that it wasn't half bad outside with some scattered clouds - I used to love cloud-watching when I was a child. Reaching a decision, I grabbed my coat and popped across the street to the Starbucks to get a tall white chocolate mocha then returned to my office grounds to find a relatively clean bench. Sitting there, I sipped my coffee and watched the clouds for a while. It was really overcast so there were more clouds than sky. Undeterred, I found patterns in the holes between the clouds. That one looked like a Firefly-class transport from the TV series of the same name. That large one with the delicate filamentary strands looked like a gremlin, with the long ears too. The wind picked up and I pulled my hood up, sipping my coffee and trying to be present to soak all this in.

I ran out of coffee eventually and headed back in, not without a twinge of sadness. I have so few days where I'm pain-free now, yet this is the first time in years that I've taken the time to go cloud-watching.

A few hours later, the pain started again. But at least I had a few good hours when I felt normal.