![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfanDid you ever see a movie called "The Road to Wellville", or read the book? I'm asking, because we rented it once when my friend's father was still alive, and her mom howled with laughter -- she had a great appreciation for the humor of the lower colon, just then, because so much of managing a man with a stroke and a new puppy involved dealing with s***.
Well, my brain keeps wandering in that direction, so, if you don't mind the language or the topic, here goes.
Due to family history and a certain amount of rectal bleeding, I had a colonoscopy recently. The procedure itself was a breeze. Slept right through it. The preparation however was far more elaborate than I suspected.
You start a week in advance, by giving up aspirin or anything like aspirin. Good thing I didn't have a headache that week, because I didn't read the instructions until three days ahead, huh.
Three days in advance you give up solid food. You're allowed coffee, tea, ginger ale, gatorade (they're really big on gatorade), clear broth or bouillion, and jello. (Notice that Pepsi is not on that list. Read it again -- no Pepsi -- no Coke. No brown fizzy sugar and caffeine love of my life. And Mountain Dew's not on the list either. Apparently caffeine fiends who get tummy misery from coffee are tough shit out of luck.) You're also advised to go to the drugstore and obtain not one, but two kinds of laxatives. One is pills and the other is a liquid that comes in either two one-dose bottles or one two-dose bottle. The instructions threaten you mayhem if you accidentally use even a smidgen more than a single dose of the stuff, but the two-dose bottle is a lot cheaper, so you decide to take the risk. To make things more fun, the directions are given to you in tablespoons and the bottle is measured in ounces. Everybody still with us?
Home again home again jiggity jig. Now it's time to take the first round of pills. Drink plenty of fluids because by morning the pills will be working and you will be incarcerated in the loo. This gives you an opportunity to realize just how much you need to clean the bathtub, and scrub between the tiles and just how did that horrible dirty bandaid wind up back there behind the sink anyway? Next time you will forget your glasses and bring a book -- it will be much more comfortable that way.
Between rounds, you stock the bathroom with favorite titles and bottled water. You drink gatorade and begin to think fondly of something that can be chewed. Due to a bout of dunderheadedness you have, however, forgotten to buy any Jello, so you have bouillion instead and pretend it's meat.
It's a long day.
That night, you have the first round of the liquid laxative. Mix one dose with four ounces of water or gatorade. right. Drink. No, no no no no no no... no gagging, must drink.... aaaaggghhh... feh!. The instructions now say to drink 24 ounces of water or gatorade. No problem, I've got to get the taste out of my mouth -- it's so salty it's...
At this point, I guarantee, you will remember hearing or reading somewhere the old cliche "went through them/him like a dose of salts." With a great deal of clarity. And immediacy. You can finish drinking the 24 ounces of fluid as you sit on the can.
Eventually, Niagara will stop flowing and you can go to bed -- no, wait you have to take the pills again. Again! But that's what the instructions say, don't they...
The morning of the procedure you are certain that there's nothing inside you but a little liquid and some gas, but the instructions want you to take another round of the salts. If you had a morning procedure it looks like you could avoid it, but nooooo, you had to pick the end of the day. (This turned out to be an error in the instructions, btw, everyone has to do two rounds.) So it's a good thing you took the whole day off because the salts are going to leave you squeaky clean and uncertain whether or not the color of what little appears is from the gatorade or your stomach fluids falling out the bottom.
Nothing to eat now becomes nothing to drink as well, but in four more hours it will be all over... well, six, since you have to show up forty five minutes early and then recover afterwards.
At least in the recovery room they offer you Coke. Life can go on!
And as the liquid of life trickles down into the empty passageways you begin to hear the happy music of innards being put back to work. For the next few hours people will be able to hear your guts mewling like a bunch of tiger cubs from five feet away, but it must be admitted, they'll work just fine for a day or two.
...now if only they would stay that way!
Well, my brain keeps wandering in that direction, so, if you don't mind the language or the topic, here goes.
Due to family history and a certain amount of rectal bleeding, I had a colonoscopy recently. The procedure itself was a breeze. Slept right through it. The preparation however was far more elaborate than I suspected.
You start a week in advance, by giving up aspirin or anything like aspirin. Good thing I didn't have a headache that week, because I didn't read the instructions until three days ahead, huh.
Three days in advance you give up solid food. You're allowed coffee, tea, ginger ale, gatorade (they're really big on gatorade), clear broth or bouillion, and jello. (Notice that Pepsi is not on that list. Read it again -- no Pepsi -- no Coke. No brown fizzy sugar and caffeine love of my life. And Mountain Dew's not on the list either. Apparently caffeine fiends who get tummy misery from coffee are tough shit out of luck.) You're also advised to go to the drugstore and obtain not one, but two kinds of laxatives. One is pills and the other is a liquid that comes in either two one-dose bottles or one two-dose bottle. The instructions threaten you mayhem if you accidentally use even a smidgen more than a single dose of the stuff, but the two-dose bottle is a lot cheaper, so you decide to take the risk. To make things more fun, the directions are given to you in tablespoons and the bottle is measured in ounces. Everybody still with us?
Home again home again jiggity jig. Now it's time to take the first round of pills. Drink plenty of fluids because by morning the pills will be working and you will be incarcerated in the loo. This gives you an opportunity to realize just how much you need to clean the bathtub, and scrub between the tiles and just how did that horrible dirty bandaid wind up back there behind the sink anyway? Next time you will forget your glasses and bring a book -- it will be much more comfortable that way.
Between rounds, you stock the bathroom with favorite titles and bottled water. You drink gatorade and begin to think fondly of something that can be chewed. Due to a bout of dunderheadedness you have, however, forgotten to buy any Jello, so you have bouillion instead and pretend it's meat.
It's a long day.
That night, you have the first round of the liquid laxative. Mix one dose with four ounces of water or gatorade. right. Drink. No, no no no no no no... no gagging, must drink.... aaaaggghhh... feh!. The instructions now say to drink 24 ounces of water or gatorade. No problem, I've got to get the taste out of my mouth -- it's so salty it's...
At this point, I guarantee, you will remember hearing or reading somewhere the old cliche "went through them/him like a dose of salts." With a great deal of clarity. And immediacy. You can finish drinking the 24 ounces of fluid as you sit on the can.
Eventually, Niagara will stop flowing and you can go to bed -- no, wait you have to take the pills again. Again! But that's what the instructions say, don't they...
The morning of the procedure you are certain that there's nothing inside you but a little liquid and some gas, but the instructions want you to take another round of the salts. If you had a morning procedure it looks like you could avoid it, but nooooo, you had to pick the end of the day. (This turned out to be an error in the instructions, btw, everyone has to do two rounds.) So it's a good thing you took the whole day off because the salts are going to leave you squeaky clean and uncertain whether or not the color of what little appears is from the gatorade or your stomach fluids falling out the bottom.
Nothing to eat now becomes nothing to drink as well, but in four more hours it will be all over... well, six, since you have to show up forty five minutes early and then recover afterwards.
At least in the recovery room they offer you Coke. Life can go on!
And as the liquid of life trickles down into the empty passageways you begin to hear the happy music of innards being put back to work. For the next few hours people will be able to hear your guts mewling like a bunch of tiger cubs from five feet away, but it must be admitted, they'll work just fine for a day or two.
...now if only they would stay that way!
