If you survive the vomiting

The colonoscopy prep with the piercing, clinical-sounding name Clenpiq® comes with an instruction manual of fine print measuring roughly sixteen by twenty-two inches on both sides of onion paper.

For you math and stationary geeks out there, the manual is the equivalent to eight sheets of standard U.S. printer paper.

With a magnifying glass the reader of this tome can learn all the wonderful things that happen when you swallow either of two doses of Clenpiq® colon prep medicine during the twelve-to-fifteen hour window before the actual procedure.

If you survive the potential vomiting, cramping, seizures, nausea, bloating, and dizziness, not to mention the massive soul-draining flood of diarrhea, you will be treated to a long wait for your immaculate colon to be navigated by a high-resolution camera, examined in excruciating detail, and scraped for polyps, samples of which will be placed beneath a microscope.

For some the reward will be a momentary anaesthetic euphoria under the watchful eyes behind the glare of lenses floating between the surgical mask and cap, followed by total darkness as the procedure occurs, and the strange emergence into light again at the end of this dark tunnel.

For others this is no reward at all but a moment of gripping fear when the guardrails are all removed and the entire unconscious mind spills out into the open like the goop that poured out your anus over the last twelve-to-fifteen hours.

This is a voluntary procedure.

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A real pain

She called from the doctor’s office and asked me do i want an interview with the nurse.

No, i told her. I do not want an interview with the nurse.

She said i have to have the interview with the nurse so i said ok fine. i also said, in case she didn’t know, i already met with the physician’s assistant, and i’ve been reading all the materials she provided, so do i still need this interview? is it a must?

She said yes, it is a must. Can i put you down for 2:00?

I said, ok fine.

She said tell me your number so the nurse will have the right number to call at 2:00. I had to mumble through a couple digits i wasn’t sure about. I wasn’t worried, though, since i knew she knew my number. She dialled it just fine to ask me did i want an interview. Which i did not.

She repeated the numbers back to me just fine.

i still don’ t know why she asked me did i want an interview with the nurse. This was not a choice, it was a must. And this whole colonoscopy thing is a real pain in the ass.

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