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 mybrain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOURBEHIND!' I left Andy' s office with some written instructions, and a prescription fora product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold amicrowave 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, becauseMoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit andurinal 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 bowelmovement 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 theMoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wishthe commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurtingviolently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must betotally 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 starteliminating 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 experiencingoccasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage.
I was thinking, 'What if Ispurt 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 andtotally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to aroom 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 alreadylying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in theirMoviPrep.At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this is, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to thebathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You wouldhave no choice but to burn down your house.When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, whereAndy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. Iwas 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 bethe 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 formore 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 columnistfor the Miami Herald.
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