This is from newshound
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.
W hen 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,
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.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist
for the Miami Herald.
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