May 13, 2004

SURVIVOR - Colonoscopy!

Wanna sign up for the experience? All those bodies celebrating "middle age" are eligible, no other qualifications required, except a referral from your family physician.

Begin with a restricted diet commencing 4 days prior to the "immunity challenge". Three days of laxatives including Agarol liquid to get things rolling, dulcolox pills for an extra punch, 2 entire bottles of Fleet oral solution administered 24 hours apart, thirty-six hours of starvation, and a looooooong  tube like contraption including a scope/camera/ water supply and air pump to wind up and around your  bowel (colon) inserted through your already chaffed, aching buttocks....  remember ALL those laxatives.

The pay load...... 2 ½ days of playing queen of the porcelain throne, severe abdominal cramps, enough gas to launch the CN Tower into orbit and the newly acquired knowledge that your bowel just happens to be exceptionally long, thus making the procedure a "tad" more uncomfortable then predicted. Even after accepting the offer of doping up on a sedative laced with demerol. (The bowel thing could explain why over the years, some people have occasionally  mentioned that I'm full of, shit. This week I felt privileged to say whatever the heck I wanted and could easily refute that accusation. I know, cuz I'm 4 pounds lighter.)

The reward: a clean bill of health for my colon and a recommendation to maintain a high fiber diet ( minimum 15 g a day) drink plenty of water and come back in five years to meet the challenge again.  Survivor All Stars, I think not..... Dr.  ProbEst

Yep, today I went to the Rudd Clinic in downtown TO for my very first colonoscopy. I could have watched the television screen displaying my pretty, pale pink intestinal tract, but I was too busy trying to breath slowly and deeply, not scream every four lettered word in my vocabulary , and remain huddled up in the fetal position without clenching anything. All the while, the doctor repeatedly said, "relax, or it will take longer" "slow down that breathing" " this is like a jigsaw puzzle in here". If I hadn't been so busy coping with the invasion of a foreign instrument of torture snaking its way all around my innards, I would have asked the dear doctor to step up to the other end, I had some thing clenched that I wanted him to see up close and personal..

Finally the doctor reached the "end" and withdrew his mechanical marvel. The nurse ushered me to the recovery room to let the remaining effects of the sedative wear off. After 45 minutes or so, I was on my way home with the other half at the wheel of the car as I "announced" in a inordinately audible, yet nonverbal fashion,  that my insides were recovering from the shock.

Upon arriving home, I headed straight for the kitchen and solid FOOD in order  to soothe my ravaged body. 

Mmmmmm mmm.... All is finally right with the world once again.

 

All joking aside, colon  cancer ranks only second to heart disease  for middle age deaths in North America.  It's the only cancer that develops polyps as a precursor to the disease. The polyps are readily detected through a routine colonoscopy and can be removed. A high fiber diet (minimum 15g a day, EVERY day) is recommended for everyone to help prevent this disease and keep your innards "happy".