Oh hey! I’ve been a bit quiet lately, haven’t I? Sorry about that. For the most part, I’ve been busy with work, and –
What? How am I doing? Really? Sure you want to ask?
OK. Fine. I’ll tell you: I’m starting to get excited. On Tuesday I’ll be getting my second colonoscopy in six months.
Admit it: you’re jealous.
As if two in a year weren’t thrilling enough, the real joy of this one is that it’s exactly a week before my birthday. Some people regain that youthful feeling with a spa day. Me, I prefer a more hard-core route. From my experience, nothing transports you right back to infancy like needing a diaper.
To each her own, I suppose. Whatever keeps you young.
Actually, I’m just happy I will be able to do the “prep” at home, in the comfort of my own bathroom, rather than in the hospital with a roommate. If you’ve never had a colonoscopy, I’ll spare you the details but this should help you get the gist: the prep (ironically branded “GoLYTEly”) ensures you will go to the bathroom over three dozen times in 12 hours – or until your stool is clear.
Let me repeat that: CLEAR.
Also: apologies for using the word stool outside of a kitchen or bar. Wholly inappropriate and kind of makes you puke in your mouth. So sorry about that.
Right. So I’m skipping the details, but I think we can all agree that when the preparation for a procedure defies nature – much like reversing the flow of a river – it can’t come without some, um, effort.
I don’t care how close I am with my parents – I’m glad they didn’t heed this advice.
By the way: If I ever have the option of inviting a dead or living celebrity to dinner, I think my money is on Katie Couric. Mainly because I want to ask the following: Katie, when you claim you had a colonoscopy on television, did you actually mean you PRETENDED to have one? Because I didn’t see any evidence of a) broken blood vessels from your face cramping up, b) shaky legs from running on zero nutrients for 48 hours, and c) terror in your eyes from the noise in your stomach.
My sister recently chatted me to tell the story of her friend’s son, who was given GoLYTEly in the ER, without the benefit of a semi-private bathroom. The poor kid had to STAND IN LINE after essentially detonating a bomb in his stomach. Again, I’ll spare you the details, but it’s safe to assume: that did not end well. Also, (just a hunch!) there may be a lawsuit related to human dignity at play.
So. I haven’t written for a while, but I think we’re pretty much caught up now. You might want to file this one under “Careful What You Ask For.”
pithypants 
Ah my dear Pithypants, try having Crohn’s Disease, when every day is a repeat of your “prep” day without even having to swallow the GoLytely! 20 bm’s a day is not a stretch, every day. Oy vey. lol
I was never so happy to be told that I could go on to the “10 year plan”. Good luck with your prep. I’m sitting here trying to think which is worse – doing that in a hospital bed lulling a roommate to sleep or trying to get from home to hospital without making a mess in your own car because no matter what time you start the prep, it just doesn’t stop. The happy juice one you get on the table’s pretty good though.
The typo in your last sentence provided me with some good laughs… because instead of interpreting it as anesthesia, I thought you meant “happy juice on the table” to be something of an act of revenge on the doctor. Perhaps we should just avoid the phrase “happy juice” when it comes to colonoscopies?
Oh wow…I can’t stop laughing & please allow me just one more comment about that which is, I’m guessing the doctors have gotten more than one final blast. Don’t know about this new GoLitely stuff but it can’t be much improved over the liquid lead they used to give you. Good idea to get an extra long leather belt to strap yourself on to the toilet.
So I’ve been completely awful at reading blogs lately but I have been wondering what you’re up to. A week after this post, I suppose I should check to make sure you haven’t developed scurvy or adopted a colostomy bag and named it. I do hope your health is okay, since you haven’t seemed to mention why you needed two of these episodes in such a short time.
The latest explains it all: pray that I don’t need to name a colostomy bag any time soon. Because I’d probably use the same logic that strikes me as funny when naming animals, and give it a serious human name, like Kevin.