Somewhere over Western Pennsylvania

WARNING...WARNING...HAS REFERENCES TO BODILY WASTE! THE FAINTHEARTED SHOULD TURN BACK



It's 8:13 p.m. and I should be on a plane from Philadelphia to San Francisco by now, probably west of Pittsburgh. And I'm not.

My week long trip to San Francisco would have included a Board Meeting and School Builders Meeting of the Mastery Foundation, worship at Gregory of Nissa church and a three day program called "Music that makes a community". All of which I looked forward to greatly, along with the possibility of meeting with Jen Hornbeck, the last of 32 seminarians I supervised and one of the best.

Fred, my friend, had volunteered to drive me to Bradley Airport, which would have been a good conversation about life and the church and how the two are really not the same. He was an hour and a half from coming by to get me. My bag was packed and my Puli dog had been staring at it for most of the afternoon knowing bags are not good news. He even barked at it for a while, expressing his anxiety and distress. When I knew I wasn't going, I took the bag and the Puli upstairs and unpacked while he laid on the bed. He calmed down after that.

So, here's what happened. At about one p.m. I went to the bathroom and had blood in my urine. I drank copious amounts of water and discovered after a couple of quarts, that I had blood clots as well as blood.

This is not unusual. The radiology I had after having my prostate removed 6 or 7 years ago, scarred my bladder. So, every few months this happens. Just scar tissue slothing off and going the only way it has to go. The doctors tell me it will just continue to happen, drink more water than makes good sense and hope it clears up in a day or two. However, it can cause a urinary blockage--which has happened twice, one of which meant a three day stay in hospital as the pumped about a hundred gallons of saline solution into my bladder and back out which, not unsurprisingly, required not one but two tubes up my you know what. Not pleasant, let me tell you.

So, when it happens--and it happened the last time less than a month ago (it will become more frequent, the doctors tell me, as I age)--I begin to drown myself with fluids and pee about every 15 minutes. If I'm lucky, it clears up in a couple of days or sooner. But if I'm not, the whole thing could shut down and I'd have to go to the ER.

Didn't seem to be a situation conducive to getting on an airplane. I would have had to get the cabin attendants to bring me fluids on a constant basis and would have had to go to the bathroom around 40 times between Hartford and San Francisco. So, my heart breaking, I had to call Ann, the head of the Mastery Foundation, and Michael, the guy I'd be staying with in San Mateo and the airline and my urologist. I was feeling cowardly and guilty about not going, but Michael is a prostate cancer survivor like me and has had experience with this kind of thing and told me I was doing the right thing.

One good thing is that I won't miss Bern and the creatures for a week, I'll see the NFL playoffs and the Inauguration.and not miss a week of writing here.

But I am disappointed. But peeing blood clots in an airplane bathroom (you can't control where the damn things go!) would have made it look like a slasher film.....I know, more than you needed to know.....