Blog cheating - Dave Barry's colonoscopy journal

I know that this is cheating.  Plagiarism is the best way to share my thoughts on the past couple of days.  Just so all 2 of you following my blog  know ... this is DAVE BARRY's article - not mine - go to www.davebarry.com to read more of his funny stuff.   




 Dave Barry's colonoscopy journal:
 
     I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an
     appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy
     showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears
     to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through
     Minneapolis . Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in
     a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully,
     but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was
     shrieking, quote, "HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR
     BEHIND!"
 
     I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a
     prescription for a product called "MoviPrep," which comes in a box
     large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in
     detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it
     to fall into the hands of America 's enemies.
 
     I spent the next several days productively sitting around being
     nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my
     preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any
     solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically
     water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the
     MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter
     plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those
     unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.)
     Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour,
     because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture
     of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.
 
     The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a
     great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, "a loose watery
     bowel movement may result." This is kind of like saying that after
     you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.
 
     MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graph ic,
     here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty
     much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are
     times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several
     hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You
     eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally
     empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point,
     as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start
     eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.
 
     After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next
     morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only
     was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing
     occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, "What
     if I spurt on Andy?" How do you apologize to a friend for something
     like that? Flowers would not be enough.
 
     At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I
     understood an d totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms
     said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people,
     where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes
     and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist
     perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even
     more naked than when you are actually naked.
 
     Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left
     hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and
     I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put
     vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't
     thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got
     yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were
     staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice
     but to burn your house.
 
     When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room,
     where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did
     not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around
     there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me
     roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking
     something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in
     the room, and I realized that the song was "Dancing Queen" by Abba.
     I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing
     during this particular procedure, "Dancing Queen" has to be the
     least appropriate.
 
     "You want me to turn it up?" said Andy, from somewhere behind me.
     "Ha ha," I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been
     dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare
     yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail,
     exactly what it was like.
 
     I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was
     shrieking "Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine ..." and
     the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very
     mellow mood . Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt.
     I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that
     it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I
     have never been prouder of an internal organ.