Confessions From a Colonoscopy
I was one of Those. Don't judge me. Yes, one of those. I was someone who was never going to get a colonoscopy. I'd thought about it. (They make you think about it.) Doctors had prescribed it. Friends had insisted too. I even went so far as to go see a friend who is “that kind” of doctor, because I knew I could trust him and he went so far as to offer his services for free, so I only had to pay for the facility fee; where they look up there to see what you've done down there.
That's as close as I came to a colonoscopy. He gave me the prep (you've all heard) and I went home, fully equipped to go forward, then promptly backed out. Canceled my colonoscopy.
It's not fear that makes me this way, rather, well, maybe there is a little fear in there. But mostly, I just didn't believe I needed a colonoscopy yet and that YET kept up year after year. Eventually, I needed a CT scan for something else and they had a look around and I decided (with my advanced Google medical degree) that the scan sufficed for the thus far avoided colonoscopy. They saw nothing out of the ordinary.
I skirted the issue at every medical appointment along with the weight scale, an unfortunate habit I picked up a decade ago. The numbers annoy me. It doesn't matter what they are, I don't like them, nor the cheery nurse announcement that comes with stepping off the scale – me, with all my clothes on, a coat, 2 pound pair of shoes, and the 4 pound neck scarf. Nobody ever deducts for the scarf. So I stopped doing that and I stopped discussing tests I didn't need or want, including anything related to my colon, which is my veritable insides. No, they're tender, leave them alone. Like any aging goddess, goodness knows there is enough real stuff falling apart to pay attention to.
Then I ended up in an ER. In the middle of a pandemic. I had put up with a few pains and unrelated issues for a long time, waiting for the dang Covid to give it a rest when I ran out of time. I dragged my sorry self to a doctor who said I had to go to the hospital right away. Not something I expected to hear and not feeling very compliant (that part is normal for me), I went home. But the next morning I put on the big-girl pants and drove myself to the ER for some answers. Whatever it was that kept hurting me had hurt me for a long time, so I wasn't overly worried about it. I worried more about the Virus and I already know that the best place to catch anything sickly is in a hospital. That's the part that scared me.
I don't know where everything went wrong, but I do know it started when they snatched my weight from the bed in the ER. They just WEIGH YOU. No stepping up on anything, no asking, no telling, and thank goodness, no scarf (since they'd already removed everything from me but the backless gown). No cheery announcement either, but I should have known from there that I had entered some kind of relinquish control cosmos.
I also didn't plan to stay. I only came for a diagnosis and because the doctor said I needed to be seen. But too bad. They kept me.
Basically, the doctors decided I needed the “ultimate car wash”, you know, the one with the prewash, the bubbly scrubs, the fancy sprays, and the after kick, followed by the wind tunnel air dryer --- or is it fryer? ---- because I went through every test I've ever heard of for days on end and with no food. They starved me. Really. Oh sure, I got broth and juice and tea, and NO FOOD for days. Only IV for nutrients and test after test.
I got my first Covid test ever and since I hadn't been anywhere since March 2020, I knew it would be fine. No Covid found and they knew that in less than 5 minutes and I wondered why everyone couldn't get Covid tested without resorting to my ploy of an ER visit.
They were watching my heart, but I assured them that my heart is broken, not defective. My pleas fell flat and a stress test came next. Stress? Check. I have stress and I need food. Nope. No food. One good thing about Covid is that they didn't want me on a treadmill (heavy-breathing all my awful aerosols around), so they injected me with poison instead to make my heart more miserable than its starved self already was.
Eventually, the doctor nobody wants to see appeared at the foot of my bed. “Tomorrow, you're having a colonoscopy,” he said. “No, thanks,” I said. “I don't want one. I had a CT scan and they found nothing.” We discussed. He stated his reasons and I stated mine. Then this doctor mentioned the “Michael Jackson drug”, Propofol. Hmmmmm, I thought …. they'd already humiliated me and starved me and I do enjoy a waltz with Propofol (my old friend from my broken leg trauma surgeries) so I accepted the doctor's deal.
Furthermore, in a hospital, the nasty prep that everyone jokes about isn't nasty at all. It's Gatorade. Two tons of it, but it's still just Gatorade. No bad taste or consistency involved. Those of you who have had a colonoscopy know what my night-before was like. Those of you who have not had a colonoscopy, you don't need details. Your day is coming.
Suffice to say, although the Gatorade did not taste bad, I was still hooked up AND plugged in, and unplugging and wheeling an IV stand with you while you're prepping for a colonoscopy is not for the slow or the uninformed. Doing that every few minutes for hours makes one Olympic worthy for the Colonoscopy Relay. I wasn't even trying to unplug those machines nicely like I'd done the first few times. I was yanking cords fiercely from the walls exactly the way my mother taught me never to do. I didn't have time. How do people everywhere survive this?
The anesthesiologist had beautiful eyes. They were warm and conversational, with an edge of laughter, and I like comedians. Especially comics who knock me out. He was double masked and double shielded and covered all over so that only his eyes peered out at me in the operating room. Room number 4. They'd all just had lunch. I hadn't eaten for four days. They were jovial. I was weakened. He came over and huddled close and promised me he'd announce the Propofol and that it would be a breeze. He was so nice, or maybe my memory of him is oiled by the Propofol that I saw dripping into my hand and the lovely dream I had, which was so long and only 10 minutes. I remembered what I saw in my dream and they saw nothing but an exquisitely clean colon, which was my reward for running through the night with an IV pole and a flood of Gatorade.
All this to say: Get Your Colonoscopy. Get it before it gets you. You don't want something like that creeping up on you the way that it stealthily crept up on me.
And I hope that you get a really nice anesthesiologist.
Just Another Lori Story
