First, some administrative stuff:  It looks like I lost count last week.  I named it Chapter 59 when it should have been Chapter 58, Oops!  Also, I’d like to thank ya’ll for prayers over my surgery yesterday.  Everything went fine other than having to drive to the hospital at 4:15 AM in a blizzard!  I am now, happily, gallbladderless and looking forward to eating something other than salmon, rice and beets.  It’s a great weight loss program but it makes it hard to eat out with friends, and the beets make your poo disturbingly red and pee oddly pink!

As most of you know, my wife Peg is a redhead.  There are a variety of shades of redhead and I think Peg falls into the almost strawberry blonde category.  There’s one surefire way of making her mad and that’s when I tell her that her hair color is actually orange.  I know I’ll here about that last sentence as soon as she reads it!  It’s really no big deal what a person’s hair color is, but I’ve learned over the years that there can be some odd idiosyncrasies with redheads.  You try not to stereotype but after 40 years of experience you can’t help but notice.

As everyone knows, because I can’t stop beaming about it, I’m a new grandfather.  Early on in my daughters pregnancy she was in the doctor’s office going over all of the standard medical history stuff.  In preparation for standard testing they ran down the list of questions about medical conditions of parents, grandparents, and great grandparents on both sides of the families.  What sort of diseases did people die from or are currently dealing with, the normal things they want to know.  All predictable questions until they asked, “Are there any redheads in your family?”  That, of course, got Erin’s attention and, when she answered in the affirmative, she got a raised eyebrow from the nurse and the comment “That’s another blood test”.  As it turns out, the redheaded gene carries with it some interesting characteristics.  Low pain threshold, lower blood clotting ability, and odd reactions to some medications.  Apparently some redheads need higher doses of medications for the desired effect but when the effect kicks in it lasts much longer than other, less red, people.  All of these things can obviously cause problems during childbirth if either the mother or the child is a redhead.

I wasn’t crazy!  My observations of 40 years were accurate.  I was vindicated.  After years of thinking she was just a wimp when it came to pain, I now realize that she is just a victim of her hair.  Here’s my favorite example.

Several years ago, after putting it off for too long, I scheduled my first “screening colonoscopy”.  I wasn’t thrilled about having a camera snaked up my butt, but it’s one of those increasingly dignifying destroying things we have to go through as we get older.  So I made the appointment knowing that they would knock me out for the procedure and I really wouldn’t feel a thing.  I tried to get Peg to write “Exit only” on my butt cheeks but she refused and I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it with mirrors by myself.  I’ll have to practice that for the next time.  But I digress.  Other than having to drink the pooing juice the night before it was a simple procedure and not a big deal at all. (That’s my plug for everyone not to put it off!!)  After the anesthesia wore off, and I stopped being even goofier than I normally am, I was back to work in an hour.  I then nagged Peg into scheduling hers and here’s where the redheadedness comes in.

Everything went fine.  They gave her the happy juice injection and off she went to LaLa land.  They wheeled her into the exam room and started the procedure but halfway through she woke up.  She didn’t  bolt upright on the table, she didn’t make a sound,  she just remembers opening her eyes, seeing a video screen in front of her and, in her semi-conscious state, wondering what TV show she was watching.  Was it “Journey to the Center of the Earth”?  Was it a documentary about tunnel building?  But why was the tunnel pink?  After  a few minutes, and no commercials, she finally asked “Am I supposed to be awake?”  A question that caused a doctor and two technicians to just about jump out of their skins.  They frantically pumped another dose into her and finished the examination.  It took a much bigger dose but once she was out, it took the whole rest of the day and that night for the effects to wear off.  I think she slept for 14 hours straight after I managed to get her home.

I know she won’t be happy I told this story so I think we’ll be going out to dinner tonight.  I’m looking forward to a little red meat for the first time in a month!