If you ever had a colonoscopy or are planning on one, this is for you!
For my 50th birthday, my wife decided to give me the ultimate gift. She made an appointment for me with a gastroenterologist for a colonoscopy. When she told me this, I complained a little while my mind was shrieking, ‘THERE GOING TO STICK A TUBE 15,000 FEET UP YOUR BUTT!’
A few days after the appointment was made, I received instructions in the mail on how to prepare for this joyous event. I was to purchase three products; Dulcolax tablets, a 238 gram bottle of MiraLAX and 64 ounces of Gatorade. I will discuss the use of these products in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow this combination of products to fall into the hands of America’s enemies.
My wife assured me everything would be alright and to ease my mind a little, she would join me in the whole cleansing process.
I spent the next few weeks 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 black coffee, Jell-O and chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. My wife, true to her word, stuck to the diet also.
Then, at 3 that afternoon we started the cleansing process by swallowing 4 Dulcolax tablets. At this point I started to worry that, with my wife joining me; we could be in trouble if an emergency popped up. What if something happened to one of the kids and both parents were bound to the bowl? Oh well… too late!
At 5 that evening it was time for the MiraLAX. You mix all 238 grams with the 64 ounces of Gatorade. Then you have to drink all of this special tasty mixture 8 ounces at a time every 15 minutes. This takes about two hours. They should actually make this one of the challenges on “Survivor”.
At about 8 that evening I started to feel the rumblings in my bowels. Let me be clear; this combination of Dulcolax and MiraLAX 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 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, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.
After an action-packed evening, we finally got to sleep.
The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous but tried not to show it… me being a man and all. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of spurtage. I was thinking, ‘What if I spurt on a nurse or the Doctor?’ How do you apologize for something like that?
At the clinic all the people in the waiting room had the same apprehensive pale look on their faces. I had to sign a few forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then I left my wife in the waiting room as 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 the nurse, who was very nice, told me that some people put vodka in their MiraLAX/Gatorade concoction. 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.
Finally, after she explained the procedure, she put a little needle in a vein in my right hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but she was very good, and I was already lying down.
When everything was ready, I was wheeled into the procedure room, where the Doctor was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 15,000-foot tube, but I knew they had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.
The Doctor 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 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 weeks… 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. 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.
The nurse was looking down at me telling me that she heard me “releasing air” and asking me how I felt. I said I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent now that IT was all over.
