Turning 50 results in increased doctor visits, increased types of doctors you have to see, daily meds, and exams you might not have had to deal with yet. One such exam is the colonoscopy. It's not nearly as fun as it sounds.
I was supposed to have it done last year but COVID (yay). This year I didn't have a good excuse for my doc when he asked about it. He just turned 50 himself and also has to get one. He referred me to the same doc he's going to. Can't get a better recommendation than that I guess.
The first attempt at scheduling the consultation got cancelled due to work. The second got cancelled due to the winter storm. The third unfortunately didn't get cancelled and I actually had to go. After a brief mini-exam the doc explained to me precisely how he was going to violate me, and stressed the importance of doing the "prep" exactly as instructed. He explained that you don't get cleaned out just because it would be pretty nasty for the doc and his staff if you didn't, but rather so he can actually see the inner walls of your intestine. If everything is covered in poop (his word, not mine, so it's an actual medical term) he won't be able to see polyps, ulcers, etc. Makes sense.
After he finished up his presentation he took off and a nurse came into the room to schedule an appointment to do the deed. I originally had it scheduled for today, but after she started explaining what the "prep" actually involved I knew that there was no way I could go through that at work, so we scheduled it for this past Monday.
The fun started Saturday night when I had to drink a 10 oz bottle of Magnesium Citrate after supper. There was cherry and lemon flavor at CVS. I got cherry. It was pretty tart and tough to drink. I was concerned that night that I was going to wake up in a poo puddle but the next morning the sheets were clean and I still felt "normal". I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, one of the few things I could actually drink that day. Black, no cream or sugar, which is fine because I drink it black anyway. As I was waiting for the Keurig to do its thing I became super gassy and started blasting my wake up song, shaking the walls of the still quiet house. The great thing about stone tile and hardwood floors is that sound easily travels from one end of the house to the other. It's a small form of entertainment that I enjoy on regular occasions.
Well, as the saying goes, "never trust a fart after 40". I was having so much fun blowing the butt trumpet that I very nearly didn't recognize the warning signs of why I was full of so much pressurized air in the first place. Thomas the Train found the tunnel exit and almost made a premature escape. I clenched and saved my shorts just in time but it became very clear very quickly that the preamble I played while waiting for my coffee was over and it was time to make way for the constitution. I chicken-bobbed my head at the coffee maker to get it to finish quicker, then it was off to the races to the other side of the house to get to my bathroom. The whole time I was quietly muttering "oh boy... oh boy... ohhhh boy..." because I started to have doubts that I was actually going to make it. Sammy the Snake was plenty lubed up and my 52 year old sphincter was losing the fight. Luckily, I was in my house shorts so I didn't need to fumble with buttons or zippers. When I was about 5 steps away from the toilet I started pulling everything down (one-handed since I was carrying my coffee) and basically jumped the last two steps. I am 100 percent positive that when Punxsutawney Phil made his grand entrance my ass was not even facing the toilet. I was able to summon my old b-boy moves and twist around quick enough to hit the bullseye after the mortar left the cannon. The splashes started before my cheeks even contacted the seat. I barely made it, but make it I did and had a jolly time giggling, gagging and flushing for the next 20 minutes. The wifey checked in on me once and was immediately pushed back by the parfum. She didn't come back after that. I sat and endured wave after wave of the tsunami squirts. I found that if things came to a stop for too long I could just lean forward or sit up straight and the flood gates would open back up. Bodies are weird.
When I finally finished I showered up and went on about my day. I didn't have to pay another visit to Mr T for the rest of the day, so I thought I had done a pretty good job of vacating the pipes. I was wrong.
At 3pm Sunday I took a couple of "mild" laxatives. At 6pm I drank my first bottle of the prescribed "Clenpiq", along with 5 cups of water over the next hour. About 50 minutes or so after I drank all that is when the hell began. I found out there was plenty of solids still left in me. Where they had been hiding I don't know but the Clenpiq found them. And the stench that I experienced earlier in the day could not hold a candle to what I was engulfed in. No amount of flushing could get rid of it. I found out why when I eventually finished and stood up. I looked back in the bowl and saw while the water was nice and clear from the flushing, the bowl itself was more brown than white. Looked like an early Jackson Pollock painting in there. Looked like the guy's head from Scanners in there. Looked like the rear window of Jules' and Vincent's car in there. It was pretty gross.
I got to do it all again at 10pm. Another bottle of Clenpiq and this time just 3 cups of water. By this time the fun had abated and I was getting annoyed from sitting on the toilet so much. By midnight it seemed that everything had finally settled down and I went to sleep.
The next morning I had more business in the library but this time everything took it's sweet time getting out. Cramp, squirt, cramp, squirt, cramp, squirt. Any other day and I probably wouldn't have spent half as much time copping a squat, but since in a couple of hours someone was going to go spelunking in Goatseville I wanted to tidy up the place.
I got to the clinic at 11:30am. After I finished filling out the paperwork they called me back and a young gal asked me if I had followed the prep instructions "Yes. Yes I did." Then she asked if I needed to go to the restroom one more time "Yes. Yes I do." Unbelievably, a full 14 hours after I drank that second bottle I was still had the pizzazz, though not very much. I did what I could and thought "I'm sure if there's anything left up there it's not anything the doc hasn't seen before".
It gets boring after that. I stripped down to my socks (weird, the nurse made it a point that I understand I needed to keep my socks on and nothing else) put on a gown and laid down on a gurney. They wheeled me down a short hall to a small room where the deed was to be done. They gave me a general anesthesia, not local, so I was out the whole time. They used MJ's Mother Milk, propofal. I don't remember falling asleep. I was out for about an hour and 15 minutes. When I woke I wasn't terribly groggy but I had a little trouble walking. The doc let me know he found two tiny polyps and removed them. They're going to do a biopsy to make sure there's nothing nefarious going on but he's fairly confident they'll be benign. He congratulated me on following the "prep" and said everything was nice a clean so he had no trouble seeing everything he wanted. By the way, if you didn't know, they check out the entire length of the large intestine (about 5 feet). I don't know how folks do that while just under a local. I was perfectly fine being out the whole time.
After 15-20 minutes they escorted me out the door where the wifey was waiting to pick me up. Off we went to the house where I took another nap for an hour or so. That evening I finally broke my fast and ate some leftover chicken wings and skirt steak. I probably should have just had pudding or something because I started cramping pretty hard and was quite uncomfortable for the rest of the night. My belly sounded like a herd of cats were fighting in there. My whole abdomen became tender; partly from the food, partly from the CO2 the doc pumped into me and partly from the sore muscles from straining so much over the last day. I was fine as in the recliner as long as I didn't move, but whenever I turned to lay on my side I felt like Rocky was using my abdomen to warm up for Apollo. The next day I was still tender but not nearly as crampy. Wednesday I was still a little sore but I think it was just the muscles recovering from the straining. I felt good enough to drive my kid's car with the stick shift to south Fort Worth and get my first COVID shot. Today I don't feel any aftereffects, but my arm is a little sore from the shot.
Oddly, señor sphincter was never sore at all.