A colonoscopy is a common procedure for people 50 and older who wish to remain among the vertical. It is a screening vehicle for early detection of colon cancer, a leading killer of men and women in my age bracket and older. I had my procedure this afternoon.
For those who know my writing, you are probably bracing yourself for a waterfall of proctologic humor, but I’ll spare you. While I am sure I will be unable to resist making my procedure the butt of at least a few jokes, for the most part this piece will be informative and factual, as well as occasionally philosophical.
Again, the procedure is common, and nothing to wring one’s hands over. My first sentiments as I observed the team of professionals assembling to turn their expertise in my direction was one of gratitude and humility. In the interests of my loved ones that they didn’t know (and of course their livelihood), a surgeon, a technician, several nurses and other staff busied themselves to deliver quality healthcare, an amalgam of decades of research, talent and intelligence, all brought to bear on my behalf. Like I say, humbling.
As anyone who has had a colonoscopy will tell you, the prep is the worst part of the procedure. The process begins the day before with a clear liquid diet in an effort to cleanse the colon, starting with a large glass of the clear liquid of your choice once an hour beginning in the morning and continuing throughout the day. Permissible clear liquids include broth, Italian Ice (with no fruit pieces), Popsicles, Jell-O, water, black tea or coffee (no cream or milk), soda, hard candy, white grape juice, apple juice and Gatorade. I had a lovely organic chicken broth for dinner the evening before, and it was both flavorful and satisfying. Vodka and gin are not considered clear liquids in this case.
At 1 PM on the day previous to the procedure, the patient takes two tablets of a Bisacodyl laxative, in my case, a stool softener called Dulcolax. So as to make sure you are not confused, applying a stool softener has nothing to do with upholstering a backless chair. Five paragraphs and only two jokes is still not a bad ratio where I am concerned.
At 5 PM, 32 ounces of Gatorade is mixed with 120 grams of Miralax (seven doses of a powerful laxative), which is then taken in four eight-ounce glasses ten to twenty minutes apart. This begins an excruciating evening in which you never want to be more than ten yards from a toilet. The effluence achieves a gradually more fluid state with each trip until the output is purely liquefied, becoming more and more clear in appearance. At 9 PM, two more stool softeners are required in order to prepare for the following morning’s repeat of the Mirilax and Gatorade mix.
I am not sure if it is common, but my trips to the bathroom continued throughout the overnight on an average of twice an hour, so I didn’t sleep at all the night before the procedure. I got out of bed at 7:15 and repeated the Miralax dosing, and the cleanse ramped up to a previously unrealized vigor, reminding me of my youth growing up in Vermont, always amazed at the neighbor’s Holsteins’ copiousness after trough time, and on the occasion when they would happen to be standing near a flat rock, you were well-advised to be wearing a poncho.
My arrival at the hospital was scheduled for 12:15 with the procedure to be administered beginning at 1:15, so I was required not to drink anything else after 9:15. I followed the instructions explicitly and arrived on time, courtesy of a friend who had also agreed to pick me up after the procedure.
After a thorough check-in, in which the nurse inquired as to whether I had ever suffered from what seemed to be a comprehensive list of every imaginable human ailment (I think they left off scurvy and leprosy), I was administered an IV and wheeled into the operating room. I woke up from my hour-long fentanyl coma having passed with flying colors and having had no recollection of the proceedings, or even that anything had happened. Dr. Epstein will not need to see me for another ten years. Modern medicine is a wonder, and it appears as though if something is going to kill me prematurely, I know that it won’t be sneaking up on me from behind.
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