For me though, there is a greater purpose...and that is embellishment! With embellishment I can take a mundane moment and make it magnificent. I can make memory mountains out of memory molehills...I can make a walk in the park, a grand adventure in an uncharted jungle. But even more importantly, embellishment gives me the power to make the painful funny...or at least less painful.
I have borne the burden of that painful moment in time for a long while, searching for a way tto share with some sympathetic soul my story, and in that sharing, ease my humiliation and pain. I have finally named that moment. That name is... MY COLONOSCOPY!
I didn't mean to take you by surprise. I'm certain you are already wincing from images that word has elicited in your mind's eye...images of bare posteriors in medical gowns open to the back, lined up awaiting their turns in depressingly curtained medical suites replete with vile instrumentation and tools of torture.
These are visions that you neither enjoy nor wish to have stuck in your brain. (Imagine "It's A Small Small World" running through your head for days on end.) Let me assure you that no unspeakable horror you may conjure, can even begin to mirror the desperate anguish of the actual experience. For me, the reality was horrific, embarrassing and of course, painful. Or at least that was how it was until I took a look back on it. Here's how I see it now.
I made a serious error in telling my doctor that my family history included some Cancer. Based solely on that statement, she made the decision that to prevent outbreaks of that heinous disease in me, I must be publicly humiliated and probed mercilessly every 10 years until the end of my life. As I drove home, depressed, I was certain that that end would be coming very soon, not from Cancer...but rather, embarrassment.
Fortunately for my psyche, I belong to Kaiser Permanente, a massive HMO that moves at the speed of wind erosion. I had time to mentally prepare for the procedure while bureaucracy ground along. It was a long time...a very long time. The "Hundred Years War" went faster. Pluto's orbit is faster. I can stand still at nearly twice the speed.
I spent the intervening time practicing yoga, meditating, repainting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as stripes...and when I reached my 137th birthday, I received a letter with my referral date. It was hand-written on parchment with a quill pen. And the date was still six months off. I was required to phone and schedule a class.
I called and was informed that there was some risk to the procedure, and since I would be sedated, I had to take a group class about how to prepare for any potential problems. Seizing on the obviously illogical, I questioned my being required to learn the details and pitfalls of a procedure I would sleep through. And since I could have no control over what went on during the procedure, I wasn't sure I wanted to know the risks. I would sleep through them too.
The nurse said the risks were very small, but by law I had to be informed of them. Again I questioned how law enforcement could possibly be interested in what went on beyond my sphincter. And I assured her that if it was a risk of humiliation, I already knew all about that one. I was always the last kid picked for softball in elementary school and no class at Kaiser could ever fix that. And I began to cry.
But she wasn't buying and mumbled some prepared answer about informed consent. Before I could protest further, I was scheduled for a class two weeks prior to the procedure. This made me happy, since I would now be able to age several more decades before the probe. I asked if I could just come in and sign the consent form but was told no, because I had to learn how to use the Golightly. "Golightly?", I asked of the hangup click and dial tone.
I have come to agree with Einstein...whose name shares its letters with most of mine...that our movement through time is relative. Except that for me, the entire process seemed to work in reverse. I should have had eons before that class, but dreading what was before me, caused to time to compress and slip by at breakneck speed. My wait lasted about as long as it took to melt a Popsicle in the summer heat.
The time for the class arrived and for some reason I cannot explain, the normally heavy traffic heading to the hospital was unusually light and I arrived early. I suspected that this was due to some little-known corollary to Einstein's theory, but who cares anyway?
Myself and about a dozen other stony countenanced victims-to-be were treated to a slide show about the possible things that might go wrong during the procedure. Yes I said a slide show, as this was before the age of the Power Point presentation.
As I divided my time between the slide show and gazing about the small, dimly lit room, two things became evident: 1) Facing this procedure required a level of courage. Everyone else sat motionless and looking like the stone heads on Easter island. And...2) Most of the possible things that might go wrong during the procedure involved some sort of mistake by the doctor administering the probe. I wondered why Kaiser would place my ascending, transverse and descending colons in the hands of an incompetent.
At the end of the slide show, the nurse had us sign the informed consent form. which basically said that we, (hereinafter called the victims), held Kaiser, (hereinafter called the tormentor), blameless for anything that might go wrong during the procedure on or in any area of our lives for the rest of time.
Essentially, the form we signed implied that if the victims were say, to be killed by the tormentor during a home invasion robbery, we would have no legal recourse...not that that would matter to dead people. I suppose that's a bad example, since it would never happen. Doctors never make house calls anymore.
Then we were each given a prescription for "Colyte," and told to proceed to the pharmacy in the next building where for the sum of $13.00, we would get what we needed. Both the figure 13 and the "get what we needed" statement bode badly I thought. The implication was that I would be dealing with a pusher who only dealt with the unlucky. Not far off in that assessment.
I had to ask the question. "What happened to the Golightly?"
"Colyte is the generic equivalent."
"The other one sounds so much more gentle."
"We don't use that anymore."
"What's it for?"
"Weren't you watching the slide show?"
"Uh...some."
"Well, you drink it to clean out your system for the procedure. You'll like it. It's pineapple flavored."
"Pineapple doesn't agree with me. Are there any other flavors?"
"Nope. Just pineapple."
"What if it gives me heartburn...pineapple usually does."
"Oh believe me. Heartburn is one thing you won't get."
And she smiled in a way that said I was in for it. I wished I knew what "It" was. I soon found out that I didn't want to know.
I purchased the "Colyte" and a perky pharmacist's assistant told me that I needed to drink the entire thing the night before the procedure. She then handed me an instruction sheet and an empty gallon milk container.
When I asked her where the Colyte was, she replied that it was in the container. I looked carefully and found about four ounces of an ominous powder at the bottom of the jug. All I had to do was add cold water and shake it up...Oh yeah, and drink an eight ounce glass of the mixture every fifteen minutes...Oh yeah, and stay close...very close...to a toilet.
"You'll like it. It tastes like pineapple."
Ten days later, I began a fast. This was part of the instructions that came with the Colyte. I could only have clear liquids for 48 hours prior to the procedure. And nothing red. I don't know why, but I'm guessing that red liquids taste better than colorless ones and therefore would make the fast less annoying. I also wondered what the point was to have a procedure that someday might save my life if I died of starvation preparing for it.
We'll skip over the Colyte night, except to say that it was absolutely the worst pineapple drink I ever tasted. Not even the perspective of hindsight can erase that awful pseudo-pineapple taste. That bad joke on the taste buds is forever burned into my sense memory. The very thought of it reviles me and sends me running for a glass of lemonade.
But admittedly, it did have the desired effect. Although desired is not how I would characterize it. I spent six hours racing to and barely making it to, the bathroom. Eventually, I just put a few select copies of Scientific American on the sink and skimmed articles about Colon Cancer. I needed some serious motivation to face my tomorrow.
Bright and early, my wife and I arose and headed to the hospital, my colon fully cleansed. I looked forward to the moment I would be allowed to eat solid food again, being at death's door from starvation. I was oddly at peace knowing I would not be allowed to drive home, since I was to be placed in a "twilight sleep" with Demerol.
We arrived at the hospital and were quickly ushered into a locker room where I was told to remove everything except my socks and put on the supplied hospital gown, open to the back. My gown was one of those new cheery ones. It had been laundered dozens of times and had faded greatly. Mine looked as though it had branding irons and hot pokers adorning it. At least that's how I remember it. My wife says it was golf clubs. And my socks didn't match.
Soon, I was in pre-op. Here, they made me sign another disclaimer. I think this one absolved them of all responsibility if they inadvertently sucked the life out of me while administering the Demerol.
The anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself. He said I would likely stay asleep throughout the procedure, but if I experienced any discomfort, I could ask them to increase the dose. He then inserted the needle. It hurt. So I asked him to increase the dosage. And by the way, he was lying.
As I slipped off into another world, the last thing I remember of the moment was the gurney moving.
I can only speculate on what happened next. I believe I was mistaken for a tire...(a white-wall of course)...because someone inserted an air-hose into me through a valve that should never be used for that purpose and began to pump me up to 32 p.s.i. I awakened in severe lower gastro-intestinal discomfort. I begged the doctor for more Demerol. He said I already had more than he liked giving me, and that the air would soon distribute itself throughout my colon and the pain would ebb.
I was devising various kinds of revenge for the anesthesiologist, when the pain began to ebb and I found myself distracted by the video screen directly in front of me. Navigating the twists and bulges of my colon was a camera. It was as if we were spelunking a cave on the National Geographic channel. I was all pink within and clean...and frankly kind of boring. I asked the doctor if he could turn to the Sci-Fi channel. The nurse, who had been staring intently at places I usually reserve for only my closest companion, snickered. Then I wondered aloud if maybe this was the Sci-Fi channel and she laughed out loud. I was just starting to appreciate having an audience when the camera abruptly reversed direction. And as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. I slipped gently back to sleep.
When I awakened, I was back with my wife in the post-op room. I felt fine, except that I was still inflated like a parade balloon. The doctor arrived and pronounced my intestines clear of any signs of disease. He asked me to pass gas. I begged his pardon. He replied as if I hadn't heard him, adding that when I was able to do that, he could release me. I pushed against the discomfort and a familiar little sound convinced the doctor that I was recovered enough to leave.
Discharge signed, I went into the changing room and a few minutes later, we departed. Still, I was full of air. But the doctor had assured me it would work its way down in short order.
We boarded the elevator and headed down to the ground floor. As we passed the third floor, all hell let loose from you know where. The tire deflated in its entirety. Thank God only my wife was on the elevator with me. I would have been mortified in a crowd.
The doors opened on the second floor and a couple of orderlies boarded. One turned to the other and said: "I wonder what they're using to disinfect these now. It smells like pineapple." Now, I WAS mortified. The doors opened on the ground floor and we slinked away, my wife giggling at my humiliation.
I now have something in common with Katie Couric. She gave the television audience a guided tour of her colon when she had her procedure. And though I had no television crew with me, I hope this gives you, the reader some insight into what you might face in the future. For me, I have to face it again in five years. I'm considering swallowing a glass eyeball beforehand. I'd love to see the doctor looking up me and having me looking back.
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