So, since I’m now 50 and my body will start breaking down at any moment, I need to get various preventative care tests done so that my doctor has a baseline of what I looked like when I was still semi-functional (I laugh. That moment passed decades ago).

To this end, in the past week I have had a physical, a Tdap shot, a breast and pelvic exam with Pap smear, a mammogram, and blood/urine workup. The physical/Pap smear came back nominal with a suggestion that I start taking a low-dosage BP med, and I’ll find out about the boob smooshing next week (although I’m not worried — the doc didn’t feel anything during the manual exam and I don’t have a history of breast cancer in my family so I’m probably okay).

As for the blood pull, that was a bit of an adventure since the lab said they didn’t have paperwork for it. Went home because I was fasting and hangry as hell and called the doc’s office: “What? But we sent them the request!” Went back to the lab today: “Nope, we don’t have paperwork for this.” Finally went BACK to the doctor’s office, got them to print out the orders, then hand-carried them over to the lab to get everything kicked off. Oh, and once again I was a phlebotomist’s nightmare. Here are attempts #1 and #2, after 48 oz of water, and with the poor tech muttering, “Man, this vein just does NOT want to cooperate…” I told her the story of the time when I tried to donate blood and how they told me, “Please don’t.”

But that’s all done, which is good. Next up on the “Nic is Old” medical schedule is Baby’s First Colonoscopy (or as I like to call it, the Magical Mystery Tour). As my sister is arriving for a week next Wednesday (read: I have to clean my entire house) and my birthday will be happening soon afterwards, I’ve decided to schedule the Tour after all of that because of, well, the Cleaning Out Procedure. You know what I mean.

Luckily my friend Stretch has had a Tour at the place my doc recommended and she said it was a breeze, so hopefully it will be a matter of the COP, getting into a weird position, dozing thanks to some IV tranqs, and then walking out of there funny. I can live with that.