Squawk Radio

Sunday, September 25, 2005

CONNIE SAVES YOUR LIFE (okay, maybe not, but it sounded impressive, didn't it?)

Although no one generally pushes colonoscopy screening until around age 50, I have an unhappy family history, and therefore last week I had a colonoscopy. Fresh from the doc's office (Appreciate that no matter how tempted I am here I have refrained from the obvious comment) I am now here to rip the veil of mystique and romance from the colonoscopy procedure and lay its secrets bare for your consideration. Oh yeah, and save your life.


I know, I know... Katie Couric already saved your life a couple years ago when she had her own colonoscopy videotaped and aired on GOOD MORNING AMERICA. But I know, and you know, that you never really trusted it when Katie Couric told you a colonoscopy was no biggie because a> she’s on a crusade and we all know crusaders will tell you anything to get you to fall in with the ranks b> she’s an intrepid reporter, c> she can’t tell you all the down and dirty details because companies like The Incredible Edible Egg and Smucker’s Jams are paying her salary and they don’t like her to say things like “Hurts like ^%$&^!”

On the other hand, you can trust me because a> I’m not on a crusade b> I’m the antithesis of intrepid. Indeed, I’m a self professed coward who, I guarantee you, dislikes pain much more than you c> no one’s paying me nuthin’ to write this blog thereby freeing me of any constraints provided by good taste or journalistic integrity.

So here’s the timeline:

First of all, prepare to be hungry because the day before your colonoscopy you eat nothing. Now, this may make you a little cranky but if you’re like me, there is a small, scheming part of your psyche that is rubbing its palms together and muttering “Hey! This could be the jump start on that diet that’s gonna drop ten pounds off my carcass in one week!” I say, go for it. Make lemonade out of them lemons! You might as well because that’s pretty much all you’ll be drinking for the next 24 hours.... “clear fruit juices." By the time dinner rolls around you’ll be so full of apple juice you’ll actually be looking forward to drinking something else, something different, something like... THE PREP KIT that has been chilling in your refrigerator all day like a bottle of vintage champagne.

Honeys mine, it ain’t champagne.

“Prep Kit” is simply gastro doc speak for “colon draino.” It is guaranteed to make said colon as clean as a newly minted shotgun barrel which, in case you are not married to Daniel Boone, as I am, is very clean indeed. It’s called, and I kid you not, Golytely and I can only assume that the team of ad guys who got the job of naming this stuff must’ve wet themselves laughing when their little joke came back approved. Because I can think of several far more appropriate names and “lightly” doesn’t occur in any of them.

Name irony aside, I can also pretty much guarantee you that your enthusiasm for drinking something, anything, other than apple juice will last through, oh, say the first two of the sixty-four ounces you are required to consume over the course of the next three hours. Lucky you, I have a few hints to help it down the hatch. First, the colder Golytely is, the more easily it goes down. Second, invest in a big bottle of white cranberry juice to swish around in your mouth after each cup you chug. Third, do chug it. Do not attempt to sip it. It simply cannot be done.

The good news? The Drinking of the Purge is the worst part of the entire affair. I swear it! And yes, it’s a pain but it’s hardly painful.

After the Drinking of the Purge, I suggest you get a laptop, a couple good DVDs, and an extension cord that stretches from your sink’s electric outlet to the toilet because, my friends, the word “throne” will never hold greater meaning for you. For it is from this reciprocal you shall rule your nighttime domain. Oh yeah, and an Ipod might be a good idea, too. And maybe some crosswords. And lots and lots and lots of TP. You get my point: You aren’t going to want to venture too far a field for the next 5-6 hours.

The next morning, bolstered by a whole new understanding of the word “clean”, you will call your ride and have him/her take you to the office for the exam. You will need a ride, in fact the nice people at the gastrointestinal care center are going to insist on it. Because you are going to be sedated. YEAH! Finally some light in this, er, tunnel.

At the doctor’s office, you go into a little cubicle where a nurse gives you a surgical gown (read “body apron” and why do they only come in grandpa prints?) and starts an IV. The prick of the I.V is much more intense than anything that goes after. I think I yawned when she was doing it. (I know, I know— “that Brockway knows how to man it up, doesn’t she?”) The nurse then gives you the obligatory spiel on the risks involved --for the record, they are like all risks involving sedation and invasive procedures—and you sign the release form.

Now comes the boring part.

I have a theory which I’ve developed over the last decade and which I occasionally float past my husband, himself a doctor, and it’s this: Doctors keep a patient waiting for a minimum of 45 minutes so that by the time of any actual procedure occurs, that patient has been bored into a state of near insensibility, thereby saving a few bucks in sedative costs. My husband denies this. But not as strenuously as he once did. Hm.

Anyway, a few hours later, after you’ve read every Good Housekeeping magazine from 1978 on, another nurse comes and takes you to The Place of Exam—a small room with all sorts of cool high-tech gadgets surrounding a very comfy-looking exam table complete with mattress and warmed blankets. After you slide in on your left side, the doctor himself makes an appearance. He sits down next to you, pats your arm, and once again explains the procedure, just in case you still had a few sensate brain cells firing away. Then finally, finally, the moment I’ve, I mean you’ve, been waiting for... he inserts a vial over the syringe and depresses the plunger and a few seconds later... yum.

Confession time: I am a chatty sedatee.

During one surgery where they used a spinal block on me, I ended up asking the surgical staff so many questions they finally knocked me out just to shut me up. And I wasn’t asking about the surgery. I was asking about their kids’ college tuition and where they thought the best place to eat lunch was and if premium gas really gave you any better bang for your buck.

Anyway, I warn the doctor of this. He replies kindly that this is fine and asks if I am comfortable. Why wouldn’t I be comfortable? I look up at the screen and realized that we have already begun the colonoscopy—either that or this is a very weird office where they loop previous patient’s colonoscopies onto the in-room monitors.

“Is that me?”

“Yup. All pink and shiny and clean. Golytely works well!”

“Yeah. It’s swell.” I reply darkly. We chat about nicer topics for a few minutes until I feel a small pressure. I don’t like it. “Hey, doc. Hit me again, will you? I got some pain here.”

“Pain?” he asks and to my drugged ears he sounds suspicious.

“Unnecessary discomfort.” I’m not married to a doctor for nothing. He hits me again. Ah.
A few minutes later I hear him say, “Well, lookee here. That’s quite a polyp!”

I drag my semi-focused gaze up to the monitor just in time to see a little noose wrap around something ugly enough that I don’t want to describe it and pop! it’s sucked down into the tip of another little tube that has magically appeared right next to it. I do not feel a thing. Not a thing!

The doctor finds two more polyps which he removes. Again, no pain. Indeed, I’m drifting into la-la land and thinking about writing—“Ouch!”

The very last turn at the very upper most end of my colon produces a crampy sensation.

“Hit me again?” I suggest winningly.

“Nope. You’re done.”

Rats.

The cramp lasts, oh, maybe 10 seconds and then... whoosh. The scope is gone and I’m done.

I rest in a recovery room for 30 minutes, then go find my ride and make him stop at MacDonald’s on the way home.

To hell with diets.

And that’s it, my friends: Connie’s Colonoscopy. No big deal. EXCEPT... Remember that monster polyp? The doctor looked at it and even emailed a picture of it to my husband (Oh, what romantics these docs are! No banal “My Wife at the Beach at Acapulco” on my guy’s desk! Nope! Instead an 8 x10 glossy of a shiny pink thing which David proudly shows around the office as “Connie’s Big Polyp!”) Well, the deal with that polyp is this—in a year the chances are that it would have been cancer.

So for god’s sake, jump start that diet. Evacuate those bowels. Abandon yourself to the sweet, sweet drugs of oblivion (did I mention I got a plot out of this?!) and in doing so, just maybe you’ll save your life. At the very least you’ll make Katie proud.

Connie Brockway, 9:25 PM
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