WARNING! THE FOLLOWING BLOG POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF DISGUSTING, HORRID, VILE, (and for some people, I won't say who) SEMI-EROTIC THINGS. SO STEP INTO YOUR BIG-BOY PANTS AND PROCEED FROM THIS POINT WITH CAUTION. (And don't say I didn't warn you...!)
Dropping a deuce. Laying some cable. Busting a grumpy. Dropping the kids off at the pool. Growing a tail. Pinching a loaf. Freeing the hostage. Squeezing a steamer. Visiting Yoda. Launching a torpedo. Releasing the Cracken. Letting Punxsutawney Phil out to check for his shadow...
Whichever charming euphemism with which the seductive male might choose as a method to beguile his lucky lady by announcing the particular activity in which he will be henceforth engaged for the ensuing 5 to 10 minutes, I'm pretty sure the medical journals advise that the presence of a dark red liquid in the punch bowl after 'launching a torpedo' is generally accepted as 'not good'. So, after a rather concerned phone call to the doctor, I was advised to pay the good man a visit. As Yoda would say, 'Left work early, I did.'
Now, I'm a pretty relaxed and open-minded individual, but I gotta say, there are few things in life that bring quite the same flavor of anguish as the words, 'I'd like to do a rectal exam.' Maybe I'd feel better about it if, instead of coming right at me with, 'I'd like to do a rectal exam,' the doctor signaled his intentions in a more sensitive fashion; something like, 'Ah, crap, now we gotta do a rectal exam.' Maybe he could hem and haw some, throw his notepad on the counter in frustration, check the hallway like he's hoping to find someone else that can do this thing. He could do something, as though he's trying to think of any possible other way of accomplishing this task. Maybe he could hesitatingly stretch those rubber gloves onto his hands. Possibly throw in a 'Let's just get this over with.' Please, if there are any doctors reading this, let me walk out of your office afterwards with the impression that that was a duty that you didn't have any particle of enjoyment in the performance of it.
Nope. Not this time. Not this doctor. All bedside manner flies out the window. It's rubber gloves in record time and it's 'Drop everything down to the knees.' And here we go. And not gently, either, I might add. Those rubber gloves are not... teflon...
The result? Oh, yay! Colonoscopy time. I just did one three years ago, now we gotta do it again? Doctors, man. It matters not that you eat the healthiest diet on the planet, that your blood pressure is 100 over 60, you're not over weight, you don't smoke, you barely drink, and that you do yoga three times a week. You hit your 50's and these guys are just dying to get you alone so they can shove cameras up your ass.
The next week and a half, my existence is one filled with dread for the upcoming inevitable. But, this being my second time, it's not really the fact that I'm about to have someone fly a drone into my lower intestine; I'll be happily unconscious for that little chapter. It's the prologue, the preparation one must bear beforehand. The two days of starvation that must be suffered. The cleanse. That's the stressful part. So I decide to make the best of it and keep a log of my progress. WTH, if I have to suffer, so must anyone reading my blog. You're welcome...
Colonoscopy Log -
6 AM - Has anyone seen the size of this jug of liquid they make you drink? WTholyF? I used to carry something just like this in my truck in case I ran out of gas. Eight ounces every ten minutes? For the next three hours? For the love of god, how is this even possible? They know water poisoning is a thing, right? They know it's possible to drink too much liquid? Geezuss, a blue whale couldn't ingest this amount...
7:30 AM - Half-way through the giant vat of toxic salt water and I realize now why it's possible for a human to drink such a colossal amount: Because it doesn't stay in your body. This is horrible. I'm a human garden hose. How can it possibly be medically ok for any human to endure this? A path has been cleared of clutter between the kitchen counter, where the giant vat awaits, and the bathroom, like when a dog, repeatedly taking the exact same route through your back yard, will wear a path in the grass. 'Scuse me. Gotta go again...
9 AM - Defying the limits of human capability, I have somehow managed to finish drinking what can only be described as putrid ocean water from the 30 gallon drum prescribed by Dr. Sadistic. 'Human Garden Hose' doesn't quite convey the effect that this endeavor has on the body. 'Human Pressure Washer' comes closer. I just want to turn off the spigot and eat something. Anything. I'm so empty I'm hollow...
10:30 AM - It''s now been 90 minutes since polishing off that salty cocktail that is so common among 55-year-old males, The Colon Cleanse. I haven't eaten solid food since a small bowl of grits yesterday morning. Despite earlier evidence to the contrary, the spigot on the human garden hose apparently is not, after all, connected to an infinite source and now seems, finally, to have been shut off. However, my empty cavern of a body has now been invaded by some gurgling alien entity from Planet Starvation. I must exist in this condition for another three hours until I check in for my appointment with Dr. Daterape. All I can think about is pizza...
12:30 PM - If all goes as planned, I will soon leave the house with my female escort. In 90 minutes I will be out like a busted black light and in the sadistic hands of my violator, Dr. GoProbe. If he decides to also go down my throat like last time, I can only hope he will first wipe off the scope with a clean towel. Food, god. Please. Food...
1:45 PM - My female escort arrives to drive me to my doom. Doughnuts dance through my hallucinations as we back out of the driveway. Maple bars. Coconut sprinkles. There's a Dunkin' Doughnuts at the end of our block but she drives the other way. I hate her. In ten minutes we are approaching the office where the unspeakable will be perpetrated. To think there are countries in this world where the doctor and myself would be stoned to death for what we are about to do...
2:30 PM - The paperwork has been filled out and my woman has left me here in the waiting room by myself to return later when it's all over. Apparently, the fact that her man will soon be turned into a human stick-puppet and have his insides roto-rootered after being rendered unconscious with an injection of some mysterious brew, all that is less important to her than the free soup her company is offering their employees for lunch today. As she was leaving, I said I would see her soon, but I couldn't stop the phrase, 'some people's kids,' from popping into my head as the door to the exit closed behind her. Was she running? All right, then. Her colonoscopy will come one day and I'm gonna enjoy me one giant goddamn bowl of lobster bisque while she's in there...
2:45 PM - The door to the dungeon of death creaks open and I am summoned by name to receive my sentence. I enter into what can be described as some kind of macabre conveyor-belted machine where the 'yet-to-be-reamed' patients are lined up in wheeled beds on the left, and the 'already-been-reamed' patients, in varying degrees of grogginess, are wheeled out through swinging double doors and lined up against the wall on the right. Several ladies, wearing pastel smocks, are running back and forth, telling the groggy, 'Don't be shy, you gotta let it out.' I don't ask. I assume I will learn what that means later when the conveyor belt plops me against the wall on the right. One of the pastel smocks cheerily instructs me, 'Everything off but your socks.' She hands me a light-weight gown and 'shinks' the curtain closed. I do as I'm told. I lay onto 'my' bed and the cheery smock-lady covers me with a cotton blanket that feels like it was in the dryer just seconds prior. So, it's not all bad. But what's on the other side of those double doors...??
3:00 PM - A smock sticks an IV into my vein and places her hands on my bed near my feet. The conveyor belt lurches, and I am rolled into another room where an asian nurse is smiling. The doctor enters and seems surprised when I speak to him. 'Hello!' He looks at the nurse, who explains, 'I haven't started yet. He gives her a 'Hmm' and walks out of the room. Chatty fella. I glance around. The room seems a little small to allow for the team of surgeons I imagined was necessary for the upcoming task so I ask the nurse, 'How many people are in the room when they do this?' 'Just me and the doctor,' she answers. In my day-to-day life my mouth almost always works faster than my brain. This time, however, my brain leaps out in front, leaving my mouth in the dust, and my thought at this moment is, 'Didn't Michael Jackson die because there was no anesthesiologist?' But the roofies are kicking in, the room gets fuzzy, and before I can form the words that will express my concern...
5:00 PM, Post Rape - I have returned home. I remember the clock reading 3:10, and an asian nurse telling me to roll over onto my left side. From that position I was beamed instantaneously through the time portal into recovery, against the wall on the right, where the clock said 4:20 and a blonde nurse was telling me to roll over and fart or else I couldn't go home. The phrase, 'You asked for it,' flashes through my mind as I proceed with an effort that would've made my parents proud, had they been foghorns. The smocks responded as though they were pleased with my effort but I'm not so sure they don't make you do that just so they can have funny stories to tell their friends. Fortunately enough my woman returned right then (apparently she and her coworkers had finished all the soup) to drive me home where she prepared fried rice, tonkatsu pork, and eggs. My date-rape with destiny is over. Finally, I can eat food!
Epilogue - No polyps, no bleeding or blockage, nothing wrong in any way. I am the possessor of a completely healthy Chunnel. So, what's the take-away from all this? It is this: if you don't want Dr. Mengele doing any off-shore drilling, so-to-speak, on your premises, so-to-speak, then it might be wise to remember that you ate grilled beets the night before and that the dark-red liquid you see on your dookie is just undigested beet juice, and is not blood after all.
Beets...
Crap...
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