A bum rap

My daughter was looking at me enviously as I downed two laxatives and drank the decent-tasting, fizzy orange Peco-lax last night.

"You'll lose weight right?  Maybe I should try that?"

"Do not try this." I said, hiding my drugs, as I ran to the toilet in-between sentences, feeling grateful that my meds weren't over-the-counter so she couldn't have easy access.  I did wish I had a scale at the moment thought because  I'm sure I dropped a couple of kilo. 

Hubby was too nervous to sleep in our room, telling me he was scared I'd poop in bed.  The bathroom is two meters away and though I woke up every hour because of the laxatives, I managed to make it in time.

My colonoscopy was slated for 10:00 am Friday morning.  By Friday, the runs had died down and I just drank the water they told me to drink, wondering how anyone could down so much fluid at one time. 

Being I'm a rookie at this recta-test, I was feeling quite nervous.  How would I feel during the test?  Would it hurt?  Will I sleep through it?  Will I recover?  Will I hallucinate? Do people die from it?  What if the doctor finds something?  What would I do?

I took everything I saw and heard that morning as terrible signs.  Three black ravens faced me on the terrace.  Was that a terrible omen?  I turned on the TV and nothing was on except for the E channel where the show featured celebrity stalkers.  Eerie.  It was raining outside, a bleak day.

I dared not take public transportation - pooping on a bus would be disastrous. At least we knew the female cab driver, a friend of hubby's.  The taxi got us to the doctor's office right on time and the radio played the Stones' Wild Horses, which Jagger wrote while Marianne Faithful, his girlfriend at the time was in a coma.  This didn't look good.

Hubby wasn't impressed with the clinic, which was in one of Jerusalem's poshest neighborhoods.

"This office is quite old, isn't it?" he questioned the receptionist.

"Yes it is..." she looked at him, wondering what was his point.  Point was that even though this doctor is one of the tops in his field, he thought nothing of renovating his ancient clinic.  They called my name.  I went into the room where the procedure will be done.  The decor was very 1950s.  I expected the doc and his assistant to light up a cigarette right there and then, the way they did in Mad Men. 

The doctor's assistant, herself a doctor, was asking me my family history and I wasn't in the mood to have small talk.  I hadn't eaten since 3:00 pm the day before and I was in desperate need of a coffee and for this to be over. 

She covered me with a large paper towel - no nice cotton sheets here.  I asked them to turn up the heat.  I was feeling cold.  Then the doctor came in singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and I thought of the drugs he would be giving me.  I asked him if it was better that I was up for the procedure.  He said that each person reacts differently to it.  They put the IV in and whatever went in, made me feel quite relaxed. 

"Turn on your left"

I turned to my right.

"Facing me."

I turned the other way.  And other than mild cramping, I didn't feel that uncomfortable. The assistant held my hand, while the apparatus twisted its way and blew air into my colon.  They asked me to see the procedure on a monitor, and whatever it was, looked like some kind of reptile moving around. 

"Beautiful!" the doctor said loudly.  He seemed excited at my clean colon, while swinging the camera in every direction.

"How many colons do I have?" I asked him because it just seemed so fragmented on the monitor.

"Only one big one."

Thanks. 

After the procedure the assistant put me on another bed and told me to "let the air out".  I guess she didn't mean out of my mouth.  I was left alone, and  I unabashedly let loose, and so whatever air was pumped into me, was pumped right out.

"Everything is fine." the doc told me after I walked to the reception area.

"No polyps? nothing?" I asked,
"Nothing." He smiled.  It's good to tell someone there's nothing wrong.  "See you in five years"

"Sure." 

You can't imagine how  relieved I was at the good tidings and thanked God for the rest of the day.