Where no man has gone before Options

[Phil Stooke]

"Where no man has gone before"

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Phil

[nprev]

Well, Ilbasso, since tomorrow's the big day, I'm drinking a toast in your honor...bottoms up!

[Phil Stooke]

And a new low point has been officially declared.

Phil

[ilbasso]

Gee, guys, I'm moved to tears. Thanks for your support.

I survived this evening's polyethylene glycol and am hoping to get a good night's sleep before the big event tomorrow morning.

All kidding aside, my dad and his mother both had colon cancer, so I made it my resolution for the year to get checked out.

[nprev]

I'm sincerely sorry, dude; not trying to make light of you at all, just trying to make you laugh a little to relieve some of your stress. Really, seriously, no offense meant at all, okay?

There's nothing fun about any part of this--believe me, I know; got some personal history myself in this regard, to the tune of three surgeries. Only damn thing you can do is find what humor you can & use it to help you get through it, at least in my case.

Once again, I think I speak for all of us here when I say that we hope for nothing but the best possible outcome, and I salute you for having the sense and the guts to have this done. When it comes to something like colon cancer, no news through lack of action is not necessarily good news, but instead a completely unnecessary roll of the dice; it's a very treatable condition these days, and again not only examinations but also corrective procedures have come a long, long way.

You're doing exactly the right thing, and there's no need to fear. Peace to you, and please let us know you're okay.

[edstrick]

Oooh... what do we have here?.. Dirty planetary pics?... Raw Regolith???

[ilbasso]

Hey guys, no need to apologize - I wanted to have a good laugh about this whole thing and I knew you would all step up (down?) to the challenge.

Everything went fine, no need to go back again for five years!

I do have pictures but nothing I can autostitch. They did do some shots under different color light to see what would show up. Luckily they didn't have to use the RAT!!!!

Cheers, and thanks again for your support. It's great to have friends,
Jonathan

[djellison]

Glad it's all gone well! The different coloured lights technique is not one I've come across before ( and I've filmed useage of cameras in most places ) - seems like an obvious one in some respects! A little like some of the LED's that were on Beagle 2's MI. Watching the use of, and seeing the technicalities of medical optical instruments is one of the few perks of my job. The very best was having a senior respiratory medical specialist volunteer to simultaneously have a fairly deep bronchoscopy - whilst conducting a spirometry 'blow' test, and having me film the whole thing from outside. The end result was a three-panel video that showed the inside of the lungs, the patient in the bronch. suite and the software tracking the peak flow. Fascinating stuff!

Doug

[ElkGroveDan]

Glad to hear everything came out OK....oh wait, that was the night before

[ilbasso]

...The different coloured lights technique is not one I've come across before ( and I've filmed useage of cameras in most places ) - seems like an obvious one in some respects! ...

Not wanting to gross anyone out, I have trimmed these two pictures down quite a bit to eliminate the overall context (no, it's not the Columbia Hills in a wetter era), but you can see how the use of different colored light made a difference in what's visible. I was not really coherent enough to think to ask the doctor what the instrument looked like, but I'm sure it's a miracle of miniaturization.

[Phil Stooke]

Looks like it's time for another UMSF barbecue scene - the last one was at Home Plate, a long time ago...

Phil

[volcanopele]

Interesting terrain here. No obvious impact craters. There appear to be a good number of tectonic cracks, with at least one prominent fracture terminating in a flat floored depression. A volcanic caldera perhaps? Numerous bright features are visible against a background of reddish-brown terrain. The fact that they appear to change from frame to frame suggests that these might be specular reflections, suggesting that the surface is glassy smooth or is covered in shallow liquid.

Wait, what were talking about again?

[nprev]

Definitely a polar region; topography favors the South...

(Glad you're OK, Ilbasso! )

[Juramike]

Now it's my turn for a colonoscopy. I'll get to ask the musical question: "Gee, I wonder what will happen when I take all 14 doses in this bottle of laxative?"

The supreme irony of the situation is that this gets me out of having to give an oncology project presentation.

And I don't know which is worse: thinking about a shoulder joint stall when they are making the "Juramike pan" or that someone on their imaging staff might be scripting in a little cartoon rover exploring around on the interior of my colon.

-Mike


(One of my coworkers sent me this image today:)


(And that's not me...yet.)

[nprev]

May the rover encounter no dunes! (Good luck, Mike; no worries...)

As an aside--damn, we a bunch of old guys, or what? Waiting for the prostate thread now. Mine was actually considered for field-goal use during the last Super Bowl, but delicacy forbade at the last minute...