How Much I is TMI?

Let's start off by saying: it's not like I didn't warn you.

As a public service, I will now conclude for you the Colonoscopy Saga. For those of you for whom this experience is abstract and foreign, you are welcome for the education. At 48 years old, I can offer the world little but the value of my increasingly grosser and grosser experience. For those of you who like to enjoy your old-fashioned blog-reading over a meal of any type or size, I can only apologize. But then, I refer you back to the first paragraph of this blog.

So here's what happened:*

As I said, the week prior, you have to do the Squishy White Foods diet. It sounds like a drag, but if you lean into it, you can just pretend you're British in the 1970s. It's a great excuse to work on your accent, to the delight of the people blessed to live with you.

Sunday the liquid diet started, which I chose lemon Jell-O and chicken bone broth for. I had never had bone broth before, and normally I find the idea eye-rolling and pretentious in a very horseshit Gwyneth Paltrow kind a way. I mean, you boil the carcass longer than you would for normal stock, it's not magick. Everyone knows if you want magick, you have to eat the chicken while it's still alive.

Anyway, I chose bone broth because the ones on offer at the store said they had the most Other Stuff in it, like protein, vs. the stock and regular boneless broth which mostly just offered salt and wet. In fairness, the one I got was off the shelf at a Ralphs, so maybe it was not a premium example, but it was too rich and dense and kind of just gave me a stomach ache. Again, to be fair, I was on a zero food diet so maybe the stomach ache was non-negotiable, but I think I'm all set for bone broth forever.

The lemon Jell-O was better than expected. It helps when it's the only thing you're allowed to guzzle that also doesn't go down like poultry-essenced motor oil, but for my first Jell-O in, I dunno, 35 years, it was a winner.

All of it was a notch higher than the entire gallon of diarrhea fuel I had to drink in two sittings (ha) at 6 pm and 11 pm. First of all, my insurance wouldn't cover whatever the first choice was, so I can only imagine the advances in technology over the years since recommended colonoscopies became a regular feature of western medicine means it probably tastes like a whole Thanksgiving dinner, right down to the whipped cream on the pie. The generic replacement I got came in what can only be described as a jerry can, I can only assume for maximum intimidation. I haven't figured out what Big Medicine gets out of freaking me out, but I guess in the end it's whatever my insurance paid them for it, roughly about $7.

For something designed to do what it does, it certainly tasted like watered-down arse, but with the consistency of human saliva, so I did what the pharmacy tech suggested and spiked it with Crystal Light powder packets, another food product I had neither considered nor consumed since the second Reagan administration. It got the job done, but just that much liquid and ice (no way it worked without ice, if only to thin it out a bit) I was shivering and brim-full by the time I'd finished my final giant cup.

I'd expected the resultant effect to be painful and horrendous, but I found out it was mostly just... odd. No cramping or sweating or panic like a good, natural chana-masala-level-9 purging, just a rather methodical, inevitable liquification of literally everything in your digestive system, escorted away at manageable intervals by gravity and a not-insignificant amount of ab work. It was more confusing than anything else.

The day of, I made my youngest drive me. He's 19, so plenty old enough for a first experience with the potential medical fragility of a parent. He did great. At least I think he did, I don't remember the ride home at all.

I have a ton of family in medicine to some degree, so I was comfortable with the nurses and doctors. I knew I was just a number to be processed on a day full of anonymous rectums for them. I was more nervous than I thought I would be once I was in the gurney, but I just considered the staff the way I consider the flight crew on an aircraft when my flying anxiety spikes: they were on this plane when it got to wherever it was they picked you up and they'll stay on it wherever it goes next. Routine day, everything is going to be fine. Same thing here, except instead of a trip to experience a new culture, I was waiting to have a camera forced into my colon.

The anesthetic was not a full hammer-blow-to-the-back-of-the-head knockout, but a "twilight," meaning in the moment I'd be able to respond to simple commands, but there wasn't going to be any memory of it. And boy howdy, was that true. I don't drink or take drugs, so the sensations were all pretty foreign. I remember the facts of that post-procedure part of the day, but almost none of the details. I know I ate, talked to my kids, then fell asleep on the couch for... four hours maybe? For a tight-ass control freak, that kind of un-control is usually anxiety inducing, but I kept remembering the point was to make sure I didn't have colon cancer or anything else hiding in that hideyest of hidey places. Fair trade.

And it turns out I don't have any of the bad stuff. They found one polyp which they were able to cut out, but failed to capture and remove. I will spare you the details about what happens to that eventually, but everything looked OK and I am awaiting the results of zero follow-up tests or to alleviate any concerns.

It all seemed fairly dramatic while it was happening, but it turns out all I did was survive one of the most survivable medical things that can happen to you that requires anesthesia. My wisdom teeth extraction was way more of a multi-week recovery clusterfuck. The minute they removed the scope and I woke up, my colon was mine again to abuse as I will. Four burritos and many coffees later, I can say I'm moving forward again, full speed.

I make dumb jokes, but in earnest, it was not bad at all. If you haven't and you're old enough that it's a question, do it. Don't let semi-professional hyperbolists like me put you off.

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*Yes, I assume my experience is universal. And why yes, I am a straight white man, how did you guess?