Tomorrow is my first ever Colonoscopy and I thought I would share these words of comfort that someone sent to me.
This is from newshound Dave Barry's
> colonoscopy journal:
>
> .. 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, 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
> discus s 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 every thing. 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 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 beh ind 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.
>
> ABOUT THE WRITER
> Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami
> Herald.
