C is for Colonoscopy

Me in my super cool hospital gown at Huntsville Hospital.
You know, I could I have sworn I was having a good hair day.
 Nothing like a camera to ruin that happy fantasy.

"What's a collenosckapy?" asked 10-year-old Sam.

"It's where they put a camera up your bum to see if your intestines are healthy," I said.

His eyes got as big as a fish-eye lens on a Nikon.

But not as big as my eyes got when that camera went in.

So what did you do this weekend? Go without food for almost two days? Drink disgusting retch-inducing purgamatic laxatives to clean out everything you've eaten since the first grade? Get a stomach ache and a headache and, omigawd, you can imagine the ring of fire down below after squirting out every burrito, bagel and blintz ever dropped down the hatch.

All excited waiting for my turn with the bum camera!

It's like everyone says, the worst thing about a colonoscopy is the prep.

See, you can't cheat when you're on a prep diet. Anything you swallow will show up as a chunk of poo in your intestine and if you have a chunk, the procedure gets cancelled because, as fancy as my doctor's bum camera is, it's not capable of seeing around poo. 

So you starve yourself. I didn't eat a blessed thing from midnight Saturday to 4:30 p.m. today.

Do you realize how many food commercials are on TV when you're fasting? Every other one, I swear on all that's holy. And when you're starving to death, even ads for white bread and yogurt bacteria culture look like haute cuisine.

My lovely internist, Dr. Brian Murat, working the butt camera.
That is me, stoned out of my ever-loving trees.

OK, I know, I'm not making a colonoscopy look pretty. It's not. It'a a big pain in the ass, no matter how you look at it, but it can save your life. If you develop colon cancer, it will take 10 years to kill you. If you get regular colonoscopies, the doctor has a chance to nip off the small lesions before they take over. Colon cancer is one of the easiest cancers to cure if it's caught early. If not, it's a deadly killer.

I get colonoscopies fairly frequently because I have Crohn's Disease and checking for cancer isn't the main reason I get them, but it's always nice for the doc to come over to your bedside and announce, "No cancer." 

Yup, that's my colon – on TV! Has your colon ever been on TV? No?
My colon has been on TV so many times it feels like Paris Hilton
and wants its own BFF and little purse dog.
I have more photos of my colon but I'm afraid they'll make you barf so I left
them off. If you really want to see them, e-mail me and I'll send them.
(Yah right, I'll be like, what kind of freak wants to see my colon????)

Or, like the guy next to me in the hospital today, "We got a few little polyps but you're going to be fine. Come back for another procedure in three years."

And, like I said, the prep work is the nastiest part of a colonoscopy. Once you get to the hospital you are treated like royalty by the wonderful nurses and the doctor gives you a nice fat syringe full of really good drugs – I think they're leftover drugs from Woodstock or that time I toured with Keith Richard and Stevie Tyler.

Once those drugs start working you don't care what's going on with your butt.

When it's done you get to EAT and, sweet mother of God, everything that crosses your lips tastes like nectar of the gods.

One caveat: don't stop for dinner when you're half an hour from home. The leftover laxatives in your system immediately start working on the chicken parm and the garlic bread and, if you underestimate the fart brewing, you could have an uncomfortable ride home.

*Note to self: bring extra underwear next time.