A Glorious Experience

My Great Uncle Don, God rest his soul, was fond of saying, “You can’t put ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.” It is clear to me now that Uncle Don never had a colonoscopy.

For some, that dreaded procedure is a good reason not to live past the age of forty-five. After your first, it becomes a shared experience that bonds the late middle-aged set together like combat veterans. To hear them talk, you’d think they had stormed the beaches of Normandy together. This is all more than a bit overblown. Fix your perspective, and a colonoscopy is a glorious experience. I had my third on Thursday.

It starts the day before your appointment on “prep day.” On this day, you are instructed to forego solid food in favor of water, apple juice, and broth. That is just the beginning of the fun. In the afternoon, you will drink a special potion that liquefies your insides.

I do not know what the substance is, but it has a magical property that apparently causes your body to manufacture fluid. I drank a gallon of water and produced at least five times as much. My body was the proverbial “five-pound bag”. There was seemingly no end. I became one with water. The source of life. I was water and water was me.

Upon waking the next morning, I weighed myself and was eight pounds lighter than the day before. I felt practically svelte and paused for just a second to admire my flat tummy in the mirror. Looking good. Feeling good.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the best was yet to come. After checking in and repeating my name and birthday to at least a half-dozen medical professionals who apparently all had some mysterious role to play, I was ready for my procedure. A nice young man gave me the anesthesia, and I quickly learned why Michael Jackson was addicted to the stuff.

In the next twenty minutes, I went on a multi-year Odyssey that included a trip to outer space, SCUBA diving with whales, and kissing that cute girl from my kindergarten class. There were bursts of light and a period when I was flying over a forest. I might have even seen the outline of a person with a gun on the grassy knoll. If I had been able to record the visuals, there would be an epic novel in the making. I’m sure I only remember a fraction.

I was confused when I came to, having been gone for so long. It took me a minute to realize that it was all a magnificent dream. Fifteen minutes later, I was sent on my way to the nearest smoothie shop, wondering what other procedures use Propofol. Sign me up.  

(Post inspired by this NY Times article.)