You're Going to Stick that WHERE?

I had to have a colonoscopy recently.

In case you're from another planet and have NO idea what a colonoscopy is, it's where someone you barely know takes a long tube with a camera on the end, and sticks it up your, er, butt-hole.

Yeah. It's not pretty.

The procedure itself is pretty tame. It's the damn PREP that's the killer.

The first time I had to have a colonoscopy, I had to drink a GALLON of orange-flavored junk to make me poop. Well, it made me poop alright. Plus the other "P" word - puke. Things were coming from both ends and I didn't know whether to lean over the toilet or to sit.

It was a nightmare.

But I lived through that AND the procedure and all was well.

Fast forward to a few months ago. My doctor recommended that I have another colonoscopy.

The problem is, I am full of shit.

Both literally AND figuratively.

So the doc wanted to take a look inside. Which meant the dreaded prep. Since we are in Arizona for the winter, I'm not near my normal GI doctor. I made an appointment with a doctor from a group that Jim had used a few years ago. He only had to pop 3 little pills and drink about 4 ounces of castor oil.

That's it.

Bada bing, bada boom.

Then kaboom.

You may recall the visit with this doctor. He's the one that thought I was a doctor.

Uh, no.

For some reason it was written in my chart that I was an OB-GYN doctor.

Anyway, once that was cleared up, he talked about the procedure. The prep included drinking 2 liters of icky tasting liquid.

"What?" I practically screamed at the doctor. "What happened to the three little pills?"

"We've done away with that."

Damn it!

I was NOT looking forward to drinking that stuff. The day of the prep it was liquid only and clear foods like jello (not red colored) and broth.

I don't think liquor was on the clear liquid diet.

But I wanted it to be.

Then at 5 PM that evening I had to start drinking the prep. Every 15 minutes I had to drink about 8 ounces of it, then another 8 ounces of water.  That lasted till 6 pm.

It took about an hour before all hell broke loose.

I had to repeat the same routine at 10 PM.

It was torture.

It took all my strength to get that last glass down without upchucking in the kitchen sink.

It was hard not to eat anything substantial during the day, especially when someone nearby was grilling hamburgers and the smell was wafting into our trailer. My mouth was watering so bad! I just wanted to bite into a juicy burger!

The procedure was scheduled for the next morning at 9:00 am.

I got up, showered and spent several minutes fixing my hair and then it dawned on me. What the heck was I doing? Why was I spending so much time on my hair when I was only going to be lying on a bed? The doctor wasn't even going to be looking at that end anyway!

On the way to the outpatient center, I informed Jim that if anything were to go wrong and I were to die, (at this point he made a "tsk" sound and rolled his eyes), I wanted him to be sure to have my hair dyed (my roots were showing badly) and I wanted fake nails put on before he laid me out in the casket.

We arrived at the place and soon I was wisked into the patient waiting area. The nurses were real nice and tried to entertain me with stories of Chicago (one was from that area) while they hooked me up to monitors and pricked me with a needle for an IV.

Finally it was time to bring me into the operating room. They wheeled me in and said their goodbyes and wished me luck.

I saw the doctor sitting in the corner, working on a computer.

Two other nurses greeted me right away, asked how I was doing, and then went about their business.

The doctor ignored me.

I thought, "Geez, you'd think he'd at least say 'hi' seeing how he's going to get UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL real soon!"

Tick tock, tick tock.

I laid there for about 10 minutes watching the clock and wondering what's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?

Finally everybody converged on me at once. The one nurse came by with a big needle of happy juice and injected it into my IV, and the next thing I knew, I was back in recovery.

PLUSES TO HAVING A COLONOSCOPY

1. It can save lives. Polps can be pre-cancerous and can be removed easily.
2. It's good to clean out your system every once in a while.
3. I weighed three pounds less "poopless".
4. It doesn't hurt a bit.

MINUSES TO HAVING A COLONOSCOPY

1. The prep.
2. You go through an awful lot of toilet paper.
3. Soreness of the behind.
4. The prep.
5. If you only have one bathroom, it can cause problems with other family members.
6. Did I mention the prep?

Don't know if you've ever seen Billy Connolly's routine on when he had a colonoscopy. It's pretty funny.

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