Colonoscopy Fun--No Photos Please

 Yep, today (4 Aug) I had my last (hopefully) colonoscopy. I encourage all between 45 and 75 to get one, but be prepared. It is the worst preparation I have ever seen. Were it done involuntarily, it would qualify as one of the most inhumane tortures of all time.

It starts weeks earlier with a perfunctory visit to the doctor's office which produces little besides a billable visit. But that's the most pleasant part.

Starting a week before the visit--yes, that does seem a bit early doesn't it, since transit time through the intestines is about 40 hours max--your diet is impacted. You can eat no nuts, seeds, corn, popcorn, or watermelon. It turns out that I happen to love most of those things. But, we are blessed with a huge choice of foods, so not that big a deal, except a week??, a whole week???

Two days before "the procedure" you take an over-the-counter laxative, which I assure you is quite effective. But it is not effective enough, apparently. The 24 hours before "the procedure" you can only intake CLEAR liquids, and this prohibits anything with red, blue, green or purple coloring. And, at the end of this day you are required to guzzle--yes guzzle--a half-gallon of salty laxative that is also very, very effective. Mine had a packet of lemon flavoring, but I never tasted anything remotely lemony. This results in clean, clean intestines. I mean, my intestines were as clean as they were before I took that first drink of mother's milk. 

But it gets even worse...because at 0255 this AM, I had to drink another half gallon of that salty, disgusting laxative. It again performed as expected, and I was surprised to be able to sleep for a couple of hours afterwards.

Well, as the surgical center required we arrived there a little after 0700. I filled out the paperwork and waited, and waited and did some pushups, and waited, and did some stretching and waited, and did a few more pushups and waited...until almost 0900. I went back, disrobed, donned the gown, had my vein poked twice to start an IV, and waited some more, hooked up to a heart monitor, an oxygen monitor and an auto-blood pressure monitor...and waited some more.

Finally a bit after 0930 the anesthetist did his job, and I went to sleep. After that it was pretty easy.

Yep, the actual "procedure" was NOTHING compared to the waiting, and that was nothing at all compared to the prep.

But, to be safe, you need one done. So prepare to sit on the toilet a while.