This is from newshound Dave Barry's colonoscopy journal:
... I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenteritis, 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 he ar anything he said,
because my brain was shrieking, quote,
'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' has 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 ambourine,'
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.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for
the Miami Herald.
----------------------------------------------------------
... I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenteritis, 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 he ar anything he said,
because my brain was shrieking, quote,
'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' has 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 ambourine,'
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.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for
the Miami Herald.
----------------------------------------------------------
