mission: cleared (see, there's a colon in there)

[chronovore]

For the curious, yesterday's colonoscopy went just fine, I am apparently clean as any meat-based whistle.

Anyone who doesn't want to hear about it should stop reading here. This is mainly for my own edification anyway.

I drank 2 liters of laxative over the course of 2 hours yesterday and by the time they went in I was as empty as Highway 5 at 2 a.m. during a truckers' strike. They put me on a drip I.V. and gave me some kind of sedative that made me mellow but not particularly out of touch with reality. In addition to the surgeon, there were three nurses, my wife, and my wife's uncle who is a tenured resident at the hospital.

They had a 32" widescreen monitor for the tour, and after a cursory glance I decided emphatically that I didn't really need to watch any of that. My wife, as a nurse, was interested in taking the whole tour so good on her. They got all the way up to the entrance of the small colon and then slowly backed their way out taking pictures all the way. I've got a lovely set of glossy pictures of shiny pink flesh that I've only glanced at fleetingly. I can watch horror movies, but can't watch documentaries on surgery, so it comes as no surprise that I'm fearful of viewing my own guts. Call it a shortcoming.

As they backed out and took the pictures, they kept adding gas to inflate the tract, and I think my whole tube probably looked like some kind of balloon party animal. When they were done and nearly finished they said "You're probably feeling a lot of pressure, so feel free to let it out."

"What?"

"There's a lot of air in you; we pressurized the region so we could take pictures. You can just relax and let it out."

"You want me to fart on you?"

(Everyone laughs) "It's just air, and we put it there, so go ahead and just make yourself comfortable."

"I don't think it's possible for me to intentionally fart on people who are being nice to me," and have expensive electronics embedded in my hindquarters, I failed to add. They continued to encourage me, and I just wouldn't do that to them.

On the last stage they said, "There's a polyp here, but that's generally pretty normal and it doesn't have any signs of malignancy. Do you want to sample it for a biopsy?" Well, yeah. Since I'm here, completely cleaned out, five years overdue from my last examination, and you've already got the bat-cable up there, just go ahead and send the batarang or whatever and let's make sure I'm free from cancer for sure. SNIP. So that's gone off for testing, and I'll hear back on that.

They finished and finally let me and my balloon animal in the shape of a colon off the table. I visited the head, changed clothes, and left for a nice trip filling the remainder of the afternoon with my wife.

As I've mentioned, my Dad had colon cancer and they caught it late. They took quite a bit of cancerous tissue from him that was bigger than a softball, and between the colostomy bag and the chemo I think it was one of the most traumatic things he dealt with in life. He never entirely recovered, as his digestive tract was a constant source of pain, irritation, and frustration until he died.

So my nervousness preceding the procedure was pretty epic. I'd been sleeping poorly and my stomach had been upset. My stomach problems further convinced me they were going to find something. I may have had residual angst over it, as last night I woke up every hour from 02:30 onward until waking up.

It wasn't too bad. I'll have to do it again next year and every year since I've got the genetic predisposition for trouble.

Comments

[cvxfreak.livejournal.com]

I remember when my mom told me about this.

Glad you're all good to go!

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm glad it's over.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

after two disappointing trips up to Colonville, my G-I sadly informed me that my intertube was perfectly healthy and did not require another one for 10 years.

That was 2 years ago...

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I am probably going to wait 2 years instead of yearly, but will ask the doctor what they think about it first.

[jjgalahad.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it isn't your colon giving you problems. Still, you were awake through the whole thing? Holy Christ, man! When they gave me a colostomy, they gave me morphine and knocked my ass right the fuck out prior to shoving the camera on up there. It was an interesting experience going completely out cold and waking up somewhere else.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Yup, awake the whole time. Nothing hurt, but they might have been using local in conjunction with the sedative.

Well, I'm glad that's over.

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

If/when you have another, the camera will probably be self-propelled and wirelessly beaming the images out. They'll mail the probe to you and you can do it at home.

Also, when you finally had your moment of alone time, was it a truly epic fart or what? Inquiring minds and all...

Re: Well, I'm glad that's over.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, considering the Grand Exodus that proceeded the, er, procedure, all subsequent evacuations for the rest of the day seemed positively subdued. I suspect there were a few passers-by at a restaurant later in the day who suspected I was playing trumpet in the toilet, but otherwise my memories are thankfully non-explicit and vague.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

The wife has informed me to-night, on hearing of your reaction, that having the patient awake and responsive (if groggy) is safer than unconscious. The patient is able to express discomfort, and thereby lessening the risk of perforating or otherwise stressing the flesh.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear everything was fine.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

You in particular can relate to the lack of joy associated with GI tract problems. They're NO FUN.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

For reals.

[professormass.livejournal.com]

Yay for fine non-cancerousness!

Now, then...where's my photographic evidence? I TOLD YOU I NEED IT FOR MY EXPERIMENTS.

[epiphaniesrus.livejournal.com]

They knocked me out for mine... at least, they gave me something that has amnesic effects, I have a singular flash of being in serious pain, other than that I remember nothing other than talking to them about working in video games. One of them suggested that driving the camera was pretty game-like and maybe there was a product idea there. I politely declined.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Were there complications in your case? What was the pain from? I had no pain...

[epiphaniesrus.livejournal.com]

I was actually very out of it... I just remember responding physically to massive amounts of pressure. I'm not even sure if I could qualify it as pain or not. There weren't any complications, though.