Many thanks to Jan: "This is hilarious...to all my friends (and family!) who are over 50...and to those of you who have not hit the "magic" number yet!!!"
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 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,
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 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.
Update on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 1:11PM by
Lois
.