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COLONOSCOPY
JOURNAL
This
is from news hound Dave Barry's colonoscopy journal:
I called my friend Andy
Sable, a Gastroenteritis Physician, 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, quote, '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. 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 spewage. 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 anesthesiologist. 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 anesthesiologist 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' has 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, 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. |
