Ask Me About My Colonoscopy

I’d overheard him talking with Senior Administrative Assistant Sally Thompson about some medical forms he needed to cover “a procedure” he’d had performed recently.

 

“What kind of procedure?” I asked, it being none of my business.

 

“I was scoped,” he said, trying to move on.

 

“Like down your throat?” I persisted, knowing better.

 

“The other end,” he said, handing Sally a form as a way to change the subject.

 

“Ah, a colonoscopy,” I said. “You had a colonoscopy.” I’d never seen this “shutup” look on Greg’s face when I’d interviewed him about his painting; he seemed suddenly shy.

 

But Sally looked interested, so I continued.

 

“Me, too,” I said, and remembering the highlight of my own “procedure,” added, “Wasn’t that the best sleep you’d had in years?”

 

There are certain facts of medical life that I could not believe the first time I experienced them.

 

My first IV: “This needle stays in all day and night?”

 

Bubbles in the line of that same catheter: “Isn’t that a bad thing?”

 

Drains from a surgical site: “I have a tube that drips pus?”

 

I refused to eat in hospitals not because of the food, but to avoid using the bedpan.

 

And being awake for wisdom tooth extractions and hearing that “crack” of the root in the jaw was nothing I ever aspired to as a boy.

 

These are all minor inconveniences compared to those that many of my middle-aged friends have endured, a proverbial bee sting compared to my wife’s pelvis cracking open while she birthed our turkey-sized children.

 

But I hate medical procedures. The thought of a doctor shoving a hose up my butt was just too much. I didn’t care that Katie Couric had it done on television. Katie Couric whispering sweet nothings in my ear wasn’t going to get me on that table.

 

What if the scope perforated my bowels? What if I had a bad reaction to the anesthesia and my irregular heartbeat quit altogether? What if the thing got stuck and I ended up with a tail?

 

It took me three years and a couple of friends with cancer before I finally gave in. When I did, I had to trick myself.

 

“Just set up a date and time and don’t let me reschedule, no matter what,” I told my doc. And that’s what he did.

 

As almost anyone who has had this done will tell you, it’s the prep, not the procedure, that’s, shall we say, inconvenient. Emptying your bowels in 12 hours so they can get a nice clear picture of your poop chute requires solitude, a good book, and even better ventilation. But even the prep’s got 
an upside—I dropped five pounds in a day!

 

And once I got to the outpatient surgery center, it was all pretty nurses smiling and saying “You’re doing the smart thing,” gentle hands, and, like I said, the best sleep I’d had in years.

 

I’m told that people sometimes make embarrassing statements while falling asleep under this particular godsend of an anesthetic. A friend of mine told the doctor she loved him. But really, how significant is a minor social miscue when you are lying in front of a group of people with a tube 
up your anus?

 

I didn’t propose to the doctor (to his relief). I don’t know what I said to the nurses. My results came back okay. A couple of benign polyps were removed, and I got to take home a picture of my large intestine.

 

My doc said I wouldn’t need another colonoscopy for five years.

 

“I thought it was every three,” I said, a little disappointed.

 

Now I’m that worst of all pests—telling anyone who will listen that they need to get this done as soon as they reach 50, that there’s nothing to be afraid of, and that knowing you’re okay is better than worrying that you’re not.

 

So far, most of my friends have put up with me, though Greg clearly could have done without.

 

The conversations do tend to end awkwardly.

 

“So everything came out okay, I trust?” I asked Greg at Sally’s desk.

 

“Yep,” he said. “Doc said I was clean as a whistle.”

 

I don’t think I would not have chosen that particular phrase.