May 12th, 2023

The above rendering is of a human colon.  It's complicated looking organ is it not?  Yikes!  What a mess!   But I needed some sort of image for the top of the page and this suited since I thought I'd write about  the colonoscopy I had  this past Monday. And what an absolute delight that was.  Insert a great deal of sarcasm here.

Well I suppose the actual procedure is no biggie.  As far as I was concerned, it was simply a nice little nap. As anyone who has ever actually had a colonoscopy knows, it's the preparation for the procedure that is the issue.  

This was the third one I've ever endured.  One in Connecticut, one in Colorado and now one in Florida.  There were lots of similarities but I don't think the differences were so much state to state as  it is that things change in the medical world over ten years time.  And thank goodness for that.

The first time for sure was the absolute worst. Possibly in part just because it was a new experience.  But also because I was instructed to drink a literal gallon of the worst smelling and nastiest tasting stuff it has ever been my displeasure to be made aware of.  And even worse than just having to drink it was the span of time in which it was supposed to be ingested.  It was twenty (?) years ago so I do not recall the exact time frame but it was too short. I am positive of that part.  Trying to force my body to not just drink, but keep, something that smelled and tasted that bad by essentially chugging it was just too much to suffer.   It was revolting.

The second time, ten years down the road,  was an improvement at least in that I was given a wider span of time to get it all down and it didn't seem to taste quite as bad (or was I getting used to it?)  Also I had gotten smarter and ate less and less as the week prior went by.  My thought process was that the less I ate, the less I had to eliminate.  Turns out I was correct.  

This time, another ten years later, I was given a choice of A) the drink and that would be a big no thank you or B) pills.  Without knowing anything else about the process I quickly opted for the pills.  As it turns out "the pills" means 24 tablets. Holy Cats!~  24?? That doesn't sound right. And yet it was.  12 pills taken: 1 every 5 minutes for an hour at 7 pm the night before and another 12 pills again taken 1 every 5 minutes at 7 am the day of the procedure.  It was a long night.  But it worked exactly as it was supposed to and I was several pounds lighter by the end.

The first two colonoscopies were scheduled for very early in the mornig so while I wasn't allowed to eat the day before and then also drink nothing at all including water after midnight, I didn't really mind.  As any woman of my era who has dieted throughout her entire life can attest, being hungry is nothing new to me.  I can go without food.  But I definitely got thirsty.  This time the procedure was scheduled for 3:30 in the afternoon but actually didn't happen until 'til after 4 sometime. My lips were dry, my throat was getting sore and the inside of my mouth felt like I had been eating sand.  I was Very Thirsty.

Still, I tried to just keep images of what I would eat and drink afterwards in my mind. And  I had some great ideas too!  It wasn't visions of sugar plums going through my head but more like pizza and burgers and ice cream and mostly water. Hot water, cold water, tepid water, iced water. Just anything liquid.  My voice was gravelly from lack of moisture by the time we arrived at the surgical center and I was processed in very quickly, popped into my little cubicle, changed into a hospital gown, blood pressure taken, O2 tested and a needle was quickly and relatively painlessly stuck into the big vein in my hand.  They gave me a lovely toasty warm blanket right out of the dryer to keep me warm and then I waited. And waited. And waited.

It was soooo boring. I did all sorts of games in my head: trying to list all of the states in alphabetical order,  trying to remember every address and phone number I've ever had, trying to come up with 5 boys and 5 girls names for every letter of the alphabet, making mental pictures out of the acoustic tiles on the ceiling..........   I was really bored.

But eventually they came for me and wheeled my bed down to the procedure room, got me hooked up to everything and positioned properly quickquickquick then before I could say nighty night, it was lights out.

It took them three tries to wake me afterwards.  Like I said, it was a really good nap.  The first time, the doctor was in the room and reviewed the results. I remembered that he was in the room but that's it because I fell back to sleep. Probably before he left the room. How rude of me! The second time, a nurse reviewed the same information with me and I retained that a little better but I couldn't focus my eyes probably so I kept one closed the whole time aaannnddd fell back to sleep once again.  The third time I suggested raising the head of the bed.   My thought being that if I was more vertical, perhaps I would stay awake better.  And I was correct.

I sleepily dressed myself and she walked me out the door to Tim waiting patiently with the car.  I half dozed as we drove through Culver's to get some food.  I half snoozed through the drive home. I nodded off a little bit while eating and fully just  gave in and crashed afterwards.  

All in all, it wasn't that horrible.  A colonoscopy is an important test. And a great nap.  If your doctor has recommended it and you have been procrastinating, stop putting it off and just do it.  If I, the biggest whiny baby in the world, can go through the prep, then anyone can do it.  It's kind of annoying but only for a little while and it could save your life. Literally.

To keep my spirits up the day of the procedure, a friend of mine sent me the following piece by humourist Dave Barry about having a colonoscopy that made me laugh out loud so I'm attaching it for your amusement.  Hope it makes you laugh too:

• The Colonoscopy Journal
  by Dave Barry
• ​
  I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.
   
  A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.
   
  Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.
   
  I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'
   
  I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies.
   
  I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.
   
  Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.
   
  Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons). Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.
   
  The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.'
   
  This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.
   
  MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but, have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently.  You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.
   
  After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.
   
  The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?’ How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.
   
  At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.
   
  Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep.
   
  At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.
   
  When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anaesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.
   
  Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anaesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand.
   
  There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate.
   
  'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me...
   
  'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.
   
  I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.
   
  Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.
   
  
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