Journey Toward A Colonoscopy

Last autumn I was experiencing pain in my lower abdomen on the right side; it emanated from somewhere south of my navel and just off my right hip. My family doctor, Dr. Schwartz, being the dainty lass that she is suggested I visit a surgeon for what she thought might be a hernia.

My pain would come and go as if it had a mind of its own, and often felt like I had a cantaloupe growing inside of me. Nothing I did seemed to provoke the pain; not running, not doing sit-ups, not cleaning the garage out, not shoveling snow and not even playing basketball.

I stand all of five-foot-seven so I don’t doubt that by being vertically-challenged on the basketball court could well have been where I might have obtained a hernia. Have you ever run into Don Cordle on the hardwood? Don feels like a man-size can of butter beans, except the can of butter beans is noticeably softer.

And, I ran into Matt Chittum once too; Matt reminds you of a six-foot-two sofa standing on end, I remember the audible urghh I coughed when I ran into Matt. Matt was concerned for me, maybe that’s where I was gifted a hernia.

I was willing to accept the idea I might have a hernia when Dr. Schwartz suggested it, but going to speak with a man with brand new scalpel gave me pause to think: Do I really want some guy slicing me like a Veg-a-matic so that he can pay his country club dues at Muirfield? So, I politely suggested to my doctor that maybe we should check the plumbing before I’m gutted like a wild boar in the outback of Somalia.

I had turned fifty four years ago and men like me are supposed to have a colonoscopy screening once they turn fifty. Now, mind you, I was never in a hurry to have a colonoscopy for the simple fact that a few years back I had a sigmoidoscopy. If you’ve never had a sigmoidoscopy the doctor smiles at you without any anesthesia coursing through your body and tells you “this won’t hurt.”

The sigmoidoscopy was darn near pleasurable until the “sigmoid turn,” at that point it felt like the old boy was shoving the handle of a garden rake in me and I thought it was coming out my stomach wall. I moaned and grimaced through a loss of breath and cursed the doctor’s firstborn.

Modern medicine is both miraculous and menacing; last year I had a Lower GI, which I believe was invented by Joseph Mengele. I’m not sure there’s too much more that the nether regions of my body can experience and I live to tell about it.

Conveniently, I was out of town last autumn when my family doctor attempted to schedule the colonoscopy for me; I guess my Gastroenterologist had to do a 97-year-old sailor to pay his country club dues last year.

I had a whole file of excuses why I wouldn’t call the Gastroenterologist’s office back, with most of them being I was fearful of garden hoses that looked like a black mamba. I do not exaggerate when I say that. I finally got up the guts two weeks ago to call and schedule my colonoscopy. There was something about the thought of tumor the size of a Titleist Pro V1 golf ball growing inside of me that was motivation enough to pull the trigger and have the procedure.

Last week I received a packet of information in the mail from my Gastroenterologist with more paperwork than it takes to apply for a Pell Grant to go to college. The good people at Dublin Methodist Hospital wanted to know my complete health history, including the time I shoved a hypodermic needle up my middle finger while emptying a trash can in the hospital laundry that I worked at while in college.

There was the proverbial list of instructions for cleansing the colon and a doctor’s prescription for liquid that must have also been invented by Joseph Mengele.

The journey intensified on Saturday afternoon around 3:00pm with a couple of Dulcolax pills. Dulcolax softens things up kind of in the same way Ken Norton’s body shots to Muhammad Ali’s ribs softened him up so that a crashing left hook could break Ali’s jaw in their fight in San Diego in 1973.

Earlier in the day the pharmacy tech at Target smiled politely as she handed me what looked like a one-gallon gas can as part of the prescription the Gastroenterologist had prescribed for me. I think deep inside of the tech she was thinking “poor sucker.”

Shortly after 3:30pm I followed the instructions on the gas can-like contraption and filled it with water—the thing was so heavy it could have been used as a door stop to the gates at Buckingham Palace. The gallon came with a delightful assortment of “flavor packs:” Yummy Cherry, Zesty Lemon Lime, Citrusy Orange and some other flavor I completely ignored by going straight for the orange.

The prescription called for drinking 8 ounces of the concoction every fifteen minutes until your colon melted or your rectum was as raw and red as a Porterhouse steak  in the meat case at Giant Eagle.

I laid in a supply of Life Savers just before the drinking commenced. I’d throw back 8 ounces of the solution like Charlie Sheen on a weekend bender, followed by a Life Saver chaser. I did this about six times until the first wave kicked in. When I say wave, I mean it in its most literal sense. It was something akin to what people along the Scioto River in Pickaway County experienced in recent days with the torrents of rain and melting snow. The banks of my bowels were overflowing.

I think I should have installed a revolving door on the bathroom just for this occasion.

By the time 9:00pm rolled around Sunday evening I felt like I’d hooked up a garden hose to my mouth and somebody turned it on full blast. There was no chance the dear folks at Dublin Methodist were going to see anything but clear liquid when they shoved the camera inside me.

I had finished about 80% of the gallon when my psyche suffered a breakdown; emotionally I couldn’t suck down another drop of the salty liquid only to make a mad dash for the bathroom. And this is advancement in health care mind you!Even though I was drinking a solution that was mostly water I knew I had begun to dehydrate by bedtime because I was getting a headache and was starting to have muscle cramps and spasms.

Just prior to starting the cleansing process I had drank 4 one-liter bottles of Spring Water, and now that I was dehydrating I drank another 3 one-liter bottles. Sandwiched in between all that was a half-bottle of Mexican Coke and a half bottle of 7up.

Did I tell you I didn’t sleep much last night?

During the night I made as many dashes to the bathroom as Kirstie Alley makes to the refrigerator during an evening at home watching reruns of Cheers and dreaming about Sam Malone.

The sky outside lightened sometime before 7:00am and I awoke to a volcanic rumbling in my stomach. I had last eaten Saturday evening, it was now Monday morning. My stomach was rumbling for another reason too, the last of Mengele’s elixir was screaming to be expelled.

I spent some time with God this morning; I think it was the only way that I was going to make it through the rest of the journey. I showered, got dressed and checked my email while waiting on my wife to get ready.

Having a colonoscopy requires somebody accompany you and drive you home. I was about to learn why that is.

I was checked in, and then double checked in, then verified, then verified a second time before I was invited to slip into my birthday suit to be draped by a hospital gown. I’d like to meet the person who invented the hospital gown; I can’t help but wonder if it was a great great great uncle of Charlie Sheen.

I received two lovely bracelets, one explaining who I was and my date of birth, the other warned the staff that I had a sensitivity to Codeine. I discovered my sensitivity to Codeine after having a tooth pulled about a dozen years ago.

I took one of the Codeine laced pilled the dentist had prescribed and felt like Timothy Leary at Berkeley in the 60s. I didn’t see pink elephants or psychedelic colors, but I understood why somebody might want to feel that way all the time. That was until I sat up or stood up; unless I was flat on my back nausea overwhelmed me, making the experience a rather cruel joke. So, I really can’t take anything with Codeine in it.

My nurse, Mark then shoved an IV into my left arm. I really don’t like needles and can’t watch when I get a shot or in this case, an IV. So, there I lay on the bed; IV sticking out of me, my colon completely empty, my stomach crying, a cool breeze slipping up my backside, all while wearing neon yellow socks. Glory!

Mark retrieved a blanket that had been warmed and draped it over my body; I felt like a puppy.

By now visions of the black mamba were dancing through my head as I watched Sports Center on ESPN to take my mind off what was coming. A short time later, Sally rolled in and rolled me out to the procedure room.

I was amazingly calm as I entered the room; the place looked like something out of Frankenstein’s laboratory. And there lay the black mamba. I could see it curled up on a stainless steel table like gigantic version of Indiana Jones’ whip, but far more sinister.

On the ride to the procedure room I mentioned to my nurse, Sally that I had a heart catheter done seven years ago and was supposed to have been given a twilight medication to relax me during that procedure, but I ended up watching the whole thing on the monitor and talking to the cardiologist as he shoved the catheter up my thigh into my heart. I wanted Sally to know I wanted some good medication.

There were two nurses, and two assistants in the procedure room when Dr. Arlin walked in and shook my hand; I wondered where that hand had been a half-hour earlier. Everybody in the room verified my name and date of birth and the procedure I was going to have.

The doctor called for 103 of something to be given to me. The nurse had me roll on my left side and draw my knees to my chest, then I saw her shoot something into the IV and watched as it dripped into my arm. Sally said, “This should give you a nice buzz.” Man, I hadn’t heard those words in many decades, but I knew what they meant.

I stared at the monitor in front of me waiting for something to happen. “Oh crap,” I thought to myself, “was this going to be another twilight fiasco like I had for my heart cath?” At that moment I became a little light headed…and my wife woke me up.

The black mamba had done its job; as well as Roto-Rooter does its job. The doctor said everything looked great and said I didn’t need to have another one for 10 years. Ten years; I hope scientists have invented something similar to a liquid tornado by then that doesn’t include drinking a gallon of rectum rocket fuel.

~ by Ken Dillman on March 7, 2011.