The Colonoscopy Files: Part I
What Goes in Must Come Out
You will never plan for any meal more than you plan the one you eat before your first colonoscopy. This is because, rather than your last meal before a firing squad for example, you need to consider the fact that anything you consume will be rocketing out of your colon within the next 36 hours.
Throughout history, and in every society, there are common rites of passage that mark significant transitions in a person’s life. Receiving a driver’s license at sixteen is one. Drinking too much and puking all over yourself at the age of 21 is another but there are many others. Young Amish men enjoy unsupervised weekends away from the family to take in what earthy pleasures they may during Rumsprinnga. Some grooms-to-be in Ethiopia jump over a castrated cow four times while naked before they marry. At the age of 47 it turned out that I was overdue to take part in the bar mitzvah of middle age known as the colonoscopy.
The last I’d heard I wouldn’t have the pleasure of someone snaking a camera up my keister for another three years but the American Medical Association had other thoughts. My physician was just finishing up my annual checkup when he brought up the subject the way someone would relay unpleasant news to a friend before shoving them into a cab in order to avoid any awkwardness.
“Schedule your next annual checkup with the front desk,” he said as he began to leave the room “it also looks like you’re due for a colonoscopy. Feel free to call the office for a list of colonoscopers,” he finished and then practically ran down the hall. In hindsight he probably didn’t say “colonoscopers” and used the professional term “gastroenterologists” but he was pretty far down the hallway at that point so it was a bit tough to hear him clearly.
Having a colonoscopy wasn’t anything I’d looked forward to with an abundance of enthusiasm but I didn’t dread the thought of the procedure either. A few days of discomfort seemed better than the alternative. Colon cancer is one of the most treatable forms of the disease if it’s caught early and, from my understanding, you really want to catch it early.
I also wasn’t that unfamiliar with the procedure. My wife had been having colonoscopies since the age of thirty, a standard medical recommendation as her mother had passed away from colon cancer at an early age. Over the past twenty years I’ve watched my wife prep for numerous colonoscopies. I’d driven her to clinics and been in the recovery room when she came to. All things considered the procedure didn’t seem to be that bad. This is not to say that it looked like a fun way to spend the weekend but I suppose that depends upon what you had planned for the weekend in the first place.
This being my first colonoscopy and the required preparation I thought it was best to avoid anything that would be too rough upon exit. As such Thai food was out. So was Mexican. Curries and chilies weren’t going to happen either and it was probably not a great idea to try ghost peppers for the first time. Bland, my thinking, was better and so I settled on a smoked turkey breast, mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, asparagus and, somewhat perversely, corn.
It seemed like a sensible meal given what was going to happen over the next day and a half but what did I know? For better or worse I was about to find out.
To read the next part of The Colonoscopy Files: Part II (My Colon Song) just click here!
About the Author
derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.
