John H wrote:
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,
'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-litre
plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar
with the metric system, a
litre 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 litre 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' 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.


Our friend Joan did the prep, shows up, and was a week early. They could
not work her in. So she had practice for the next week.