Mother's Day - Champagne or Colonoscopy?

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day in Australia. I would actually love it if we could get a global Mother’s Day – an International Day of the Mother. UK Mothering Sunday is linked to Easter and the Christian calendar and this year was March 6^th, whereas Australia and New Zealand follow the US custom of the second Sunday in May, which is tomorrow.  It is unfortunate that the UK Mothering Sunday falls before the Australian celebration in that it means my own mother’s chances of scoring a on time card from this particular off shore offspring are remarkably low.

My own Mother’s Day celebration tomorrow, is on paper, not shaping well.  Drama Queen No.1 is in hospital recuperating from an operation, Drama Queen No.2 is down at university in Melbourne, recuperating from a night spent on a beach photographing a meteorite shower and watching the phosphorescence in the waves, and Drama Queen No.3 is spending the night at a friend’s place so I am going to wake up with no daughters in residence – BUT IT GETS MUCH WORSE – because actually celebration of motherhood and the implied goal of me getting my just rewards in terms of cake and champagne does not actually require offspring physically present – I am quite capable of quaffing it with Husband or on my own.  The disaster is the result of a move that only I could make, I have somehow scheduled for Monday morning, the routine, age related, something it would be good to do, colonoscopy that I have been gently, and rightly, nagged into by my GP.

This fatal flaw on the timing front means that as per the instruction sheet, not only am I taking a variety of what I presume are laxatives – and I must confess to some worries about the speed and ferocity at which they work, based on the advice to stay close to a toilet, but I also have to exist on a clear liquid diet for 24 hours before the procedure, which effectively scuppers any hopes of a Mother’s Day high tea or indeed knees up.  I did phone the doctor’s receptionist in the vain hope champagne might qualify on the clear liquid front – it does, but sadly fails the no alcohol test.  

The upside is that I console myself that I am so lucky to live in a country with a fabulous medical system that supports and cares for us as a family, and that I am offered a test that could be invaluable in saving my life, so in the contest between champagne and colonoscopy – I guess colonoscopy wins hands down – with champagne afterwards naturally.

And of course there is the fact that I feel very loved by the dramatic offspring everyday of the year, so before I get absurdly sentimental I’d like pay homage to Tom Lehrer who wrote one of the best songs about loving your mother – Oedipus Rex – that contains one of my favourite lines “I’d rather marry a duck-billed platypus”.

Oedipus Rex