Colonoscopy. Mm-hm. Bet ya didn’t see that comin’.
Yes gentle readers, almost five years have gone past since my last colon screening and so it was time to face the music once again. But it took me four months to get an appointment with my GI guy, so I figured when I saw him this past Tuesday, it would be at least another couple months before I’d get an appointment for the procedure.
“We have an opening on Thursday,” the receptionist informed me, but I heard, “We have openings on Thursdays.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “Thursdays are good.”
“How about 1 pm.?”
“OK, and what’s the date on that?”
“December 22nd.”
I froze and stared at her. “This December 22nd?” I finally managed to squeek.
“Uh-huh.”
“Like, two days from now?”
“Yup. Consider it an early Christmas present.” She smiled.
The receptionists for gastroenterologists apparently have their own idea as to what constitutes “a present”. Vastly different from the rest of us mortals.
Feeling just a tad blindsided, I did agree to the date, but inquired of my doctor if there was anything new in bowel preps. Citro-Mag is the vilest tasting stuff on the face of the earth, and that other Go Lytely prep (a fiendishly ironic name) is barely better. “C’mon,” I whined, “if we can put a man on the moon…”
But he interrupted my lecture by handing me a scrip for Pico-Salax, three little packets. You take one (in just 5 oz. of water) three times on the prep day and although you still have to drink a lot of fluids, it can be tea or juice or broth – stuff you can stomach, pun intended. What a difference it made for me! I actually slept five hours the night before the procedure. A different story from five years ago when I spent the night freezing, joints screaming, and only managed three ragged hours of shut-eye. It’s not something I’d like to do any more often than every five years mind you, but I will sure take the improvement, thank you very much Pico-Salax!
But why put myself through all this in the first place? Well, I lost one of my best friends to colon cancer a few years ago. Early detection might have saved her. To my mind, that’s the best reason to endure a little discomfort – do it for ourselves and for the ones we love. So, hey, I guess it was an early Christmas present, after all.
Merry Christmas, everyone! See you in the New Year!
