I called my friend Dr. Andy
Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few
days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon,
a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing
briefly through Minneapolis . Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to
me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I
didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote,
'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'
I left Andy's office with some
written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,'
which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss
MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow
it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies.
I spent the next several days
productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my
colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I
didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which
is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the
MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug,
then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the
metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the
whole jug . This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am
being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint
of lemon.
The instructions for MoviPrep,
clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you
drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like
saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the
ground.
MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative.
I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a
space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as
the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You
spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently.
You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty,
you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can
tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you
have not even eaten yet.
After an action-packed evening,
I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was
very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been
experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking,
'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like
that? Flowers would not be enough.
At the clinic I had to sign
many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever
the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy
people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes
and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the
kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you
are actually naked.
Then a nurse named Eddie put a
little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have
fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie
also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was
ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would
happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were
staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn
your house.
When everything was ready,
Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse
and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy
had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this
point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began
hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the
room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA I remarked to
Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular
procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate.
'You want me to turn it up?'
said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was
time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are
squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit
detail, exactly what it was like.
I have no idea. Really. I slept
through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, Feel the beat of the
tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a
very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt.
I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It
was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have
never been prouder of an internal organ.
ABOUT THE WRITER Dave Barry is
a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami
Herald.
