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- 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, '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.
- 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' had 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.
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