Monday, April 06, 2009

Fanfare for Trumpet and Peristalsis

So, the sixty-four ounces of Gatorade and MiraLAX yesterday, the late-into-the-evening hours communing with the porcelain god,( and down ten pounds from my normal weight this a.m.) and my wife hauled me off to the clinic to my appointment with Mr. Colonoscopy.

Same nurse who prepped me for my knee happened to be on, and we recognized each other. 

It's not something one would do for entertainment particularly, but once they push a couple hypodermics full of happy juice into the IV, the procedure takes on an otherworldly air. You can watch it on the monitor, but your interest level is somewhat ... lackadaisical. I was awake through most of it.

Look, it's the inside of your large intestine!

Yawn. So?

Nothing there that wasn't supposed to be, and I'm good for ten years before I have to do it again.  Plus they validated our parking ticket. 

I am still spaced out from the drug cocktail and off to take a nice nap now. Try to keep things down to a dull roar until I get back. 

12 comments:

  1. I know a guy in chicago who is slowly slipping more and more into clinical paranoia. It's very sad to watch. Now he is convinced that the shadow government has implanted a mass into his small intestine and has been going in to different doctors trying to get them to do colonoscopies, but they apparently see something amiss (maybe all the colonoscopies on his recent health records) and refuse to perform the procedure. Now he strongly suspects that all of those doctors are part of a conspiracy.

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  2. I can relate to the drug cocktail. I had my annual endoscopy done last Friday and spent the better part of that day is a delightfully dull haze.

    The first time I had one, I had just been certified to operate the same type of scope for aircraft engine inspections. Same exact type of scope, same manufacturer. I asked the doc if I could operate it, he said if I could stay awake, sure.

    On the down side, the doc didn't like what he saw, so I have to go in this Wed and get scheduled for surgery.

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  3. Brad --

    Your doc going in with the scope, or is he gonna open you up? Up here, if they spot a polyp when they are looking, they go ahead and snip it and then run it by the path lab. Saves a trip.

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  4. Worg --

    Yeah, I've dealt with folks like that -- foil-hat folks, to stop the rays from the mothership. Sad.

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  5. >"the sixty-four ounces of Gatorade and MiraLAX"<

    You and your damn penchant for numbering things, I swear it will be the death of you yet.

    Sixty Four Ounces

    Nintey Seven Steps

    Thirty Four Flavors

    Twelve Jurus

    Two Corgis

    The only thing missing here is "...And a partridge in a pear treeeeee!"

    What in seven hells were you thinking when you downed that particular concoction, anyway?

    Actually, belay that. I have no interest whatsoever in knowing what urges you indulged when you thought to give yourself half a gallon of liquid drain-o for your colon. Just warn me when the notion overtakes you again, and I'll stand WELL BACK.

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  6. Precision, lad, precision. People know what a bottle of beer hold -- usually twelve ounces -- but they don't know what a bottle of Gatorade is. So it was like swilling down five and a third beers in an hour and an a half -- plus half a pound of the goop -- that's fourteen normal dose, by the by.

    Or a couple of Big Gulps from 7-Eleven ...

    People need to know these things.

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  7. Polyps were removed. The ulcers have gotten worse and my Barrett's has spread. He is doing a procedure to repair the damage and hopefully prevent it from developing into cancer.

    Not looking forward to it, but I'd like to continue be able to talk.

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  8. When I had mine, my doctor then gave me a full exam. When he snapped the glove on I yelled at him "You were just there, you couldn't just look at it." He yelled back "Do you think I like doing this, shut up and bend over!"

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  9. The 64oz. is very important and rememorable when you're stuggling to get the last of it down.
    You sure the dull roar wasn't the air the scope introduced?

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  10. Brad --

    I hear you. Good luck on the surgery and my best for a success and fast recovery. Keep us posted.

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  11. "Now he strongly suspects that all of those doctors are part of a conspiracy"

    What's sad is that he's probably right, in that the last several doctors he's told this to are conspiring to get him under mental care... I hope...

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  12. Best of luck to you, sir. The worst part of my colonoscopy last year was the week or two afterwards, where the five feet of colonic machinery just didn't seem to work right.

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