The Colonoscopy

The other day I called my gastroenterologist to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.  A few days later, in his office, he showed me a color diagram of the colon.  It’s a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.  Then he 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 GONNA STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!"

I left the 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 dicuss 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 fas 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 I was very nervous.  I had a friend drive me to the clinic.  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 the doctor?  How do you apologize to someone for something like that?  Flowers wouldn’t 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.  Eddie told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep.  At fist 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 down.  When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where the doctor was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist.  I didn’t see the 17,000 foot tube, but I knew it had to be hidden somewhere around there.  The doctor had me roll over onto 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, 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 the doctor from somewhere behind me.  "Ha, ha," I said.  And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. 
Prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you in explicit detail exactly what it was like.

Really, I have no idea.  I slept throught it.  One moment, ABBA was yelling ‘Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,’ and the next moment, I was back in the recovery room waking up in a very mellow mood.  The doctor was looking down at me and asking how I felt.  I felt excellent.  I even felt more excellent when they told me I had passed with flying colors.

The following are actual comments made by patients (predominately male) while the doctor was performing their colonoscopies:

"Take it easy, Doc.  You’re boldly going where no man has gone before!"

"Find Amelia Earhart yet?"

"Can you hear me now?"

"Are we there yet?"

"You know in Arkansas, we are now legally married."

"Any sign of trapped miners?"

"Hey!  Now I know how a Muppet feel!"

"Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head isn’t up there?"