A couple of weeks ago a friend sent me a email joke, I don't usually read them but this one made me laugh, I shouldn't have.
Later, on a fairly routine visit to the Dr. in relation to a minor issue, it was suggest that I should make an appointment for...\ Yes, you guessed right and its all true! (but mine was Klean-Prep)
I share the following email I think this explains the procedure much better than I could:
ABOUT THE WRITER: Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humour columnist for the Miami Herald.
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-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 humour, 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 apologise 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 realised 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.
And yes, I'm fine. K
