For some reason I made it to 61 without having a colonoscopy. I've had two sigmoidoscopies. (I have to interrupt myself here. I got the dotted red line under sigmoidoscopies that indicates a misspelling so I right-clicked it and the suggested replacement word was kaleidoscopes. Now that's funny.).
So I've had the two sigmoids, as I call them, like they're intimate friends and I've given them nicknames, but my new doc in Show Low kinda put his foot down about this test and said, Go! Because I always do as I'm told I made an appointment in Flagstaff and today was the red letter day.
I'm sure everyone has heard every horror story out there about colonoscopy prep. I know what I went through with my sigmoids. The enemas were dreadful. Ee-yuk. And that was only to look at the last foot or so of the colon. The colonoscopy goes, what, three to five feet which must make the prep three to five times as bad, right? I think it's a logical conclusion. I was not looking forward to it at.all. Lately, however, like in the past year, one of my mantras is one does what one must, so I researched who my insurance company would pay for and found a likely candidate in Dr. Andrew Overhiser of the Forest Canyon Endoscopy and Surgery Center.
The prep started on Tuesday, when I was told to stop eating high-fiber food. The next step was on Wednesday. At 5:00 I was instructed to take four doses of the over-the-counter laxative Miralax. Do you not just love the names the advertisers come up with? Miralax, like it's a miracle laxative. I can't attest to the miracle part of it, and somewhat protest the presumption that it is a miracle just because it works, similar to every kid on the soccer team getting a trophy, but yes, it worked. That also started the fast. I celebrated this much-anticipated event by eating two pieces of pizza, swallowing the last bite at 4:59. I'll go out on a limb and say there is 0 fiber in pizza.
Thursday, the direction was to drink 64 ounces of water, a walk in the park. At 5:00 I started the heavy-duty laxative, wherein I became an alchemist, albeit a low tech one, and mixed two packets of a product called Movi-Prep, another twee name, into a liter bottle of water, and swallowed eight ounces of it every 15 minutes until it was done. It had a mildly salty taste, so after the first swig I added two little packets of lemonade mix, but really, the salt wasn't much different from the salt on a margarita glass. Just think of it like that. Then had to drink another 16 ounces of water. The doc wanted things flushed out.
At 9:00 I repeated the alchemy. In between 5 and 9 I kept the loo in friendly proximity, but honestly, truly, and really, it was not bad. I didn't have to live in the bathroom. I didn't have to set up a station with my cell phone, iPad, cold baby wipes, and Desitin to survive the ordeal, as some people on the internet suggested, because there wasn't an ordeal. The prep for this procedure was far, far easier than for the sigmoid.
I was up maybe three times to use the loo during the night and that was it. This morning the HH drove me to Flag where I met the doc and the nurse anesthetist, who treated me like I was the only person on the schedule for the day. They told me exactly what would happen, what they were doing at every stage of the pre-anesthesia prep, turned me on my side, covered me with a warm blanket, and gave me happy gas. Actually it was an IV, but happy gas sounds more fun. The next thing I knew I was waking up. There was a little bit of tootiness but, once again, much, much less than with the sigmoid.
Why am I giving too much information? My test showed a healthy, pink colon and I don't have to go back for ten years, but I would have had no way of knowing that until I had it done. Colon cancer is so preventable and people are scared off being scoped because they've heard how awful every minute of it is. I'm here to talk about this icky subject because being open about how our bodies work is important to staying healthy. Remember when no one talked about breast cancer, god forbid they should even say the word breast? Now it's common conversation. Go get tested, people of a certain age. It ain't no big deal.
Now here's your treat for sticking with me to the end. My very own colon, on the internet for anyone to see. BTW, that black thing in the last picture is the end of the scope.
Now just do it.
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Thought of the day, something I found on Pinterest:
