GET READY TO LAUGH TILL YOU CRY..... ITS THE BEST EVER
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, and 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 though 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 FireHose 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'
has 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, Abbawas
shrieking 'Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from 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.
