Every Five Years

Yesterday I went to the local surgery center to have a colonoscopy, the second in my life. A few things have changed since the last time I went through this humiliation. The good news is you don't' have to drink quite as much of the prep liquid; the bad news is it tastes just as crappy. The good news is you can choose from five flavors; the bad news is it tastes just as crappy. I chose cherry. For all I knew it could have been stink-weed.

I arrived on time at the place where the diagnostic procedure was to be done. However, the doctor was running about an hour late. I wasn't surprised, I told the nurse. These guys always get a little behind in their work.

So, I laid in the prep room and listened to the nurses give the same little speech to the other 5-6 people waiting to have the enema cinema. "Well, the worst part is over," they said to everyone, by which they meant drinking a liter of that cherry flavored gruel. (It actually tastes like super-thick unflavored Gator Aid, or as they are now calling it G. G stands for gruel.)

They put in the IV and put a blood pressure cuff around my arm. They took some of my blood and I was surprised that my blood sugar was only 108. Of course, I had no food in me -- at all!

After listening to the guy with sleep apneia in the next curtained-off area snore and then grow strangely silent before gasping for air with grunts and moans (how could he sleep?), a male nurse named Barnett came and got me ready. I asked him if his family was from Tennessee, and he said yes and how did I know that. So I told him about the American migration of Barnetts (his family being the English criminals who came to Georgia and then to Tennessee and my side of the family being the stalwart, clean German farmers who came across Pennsylvania.) I'm just saying ...

So they wheel me into the operating room or some white room with bio-hazard waste-cans and high-def monitors. Last time I did this it was a little color screen about the size of a Dick Tracey TV watch (remember those?). My innards in 1080i -- WOW!

Jim Barnett tells me to lay on my left side and tells me to hug the pillow. A moment later he asks if I'm getting sleepy. I did feel a little ... and the next thing I knew I was in the recovery room. Julie was walking in to see me. It takes a bit to recover. The nurse told me it was like having too many margaritas (of course, I had no idea what she was talking about).

Turns out the Doctor fourn one very little polyp which he excised. It was so small he said he wasn't really concerned at all about it. I thought we should call a very small polyp a pol or perhaps a lyp. He does want me on a high fiber diet. I know what that means -- eat a lot of foods that taste like cardboard.

Julie brought me home and I was fine after getting rid of the huge air bubble that had managed to work itself around my lower GI. That air bubble was actually quite painful, but I'll let the nurse keep telling her patients that the worst part is over.