DO NOT WANT (Edited with outcome)

Sep 8, 2009

By Ken.

Rather than sitting at work, I am sitting in an over-air-conditioned medical office in Pasadena.

In an hour or so, some medical technicians are going to show me some hi-tech equipment. This equipment, composed of space-age polymers, represents the pinnacle of developments in telemetry, miniaturization, fiber optics, and biomechanical engineering. The doctor is going to explain this technology to me very carefully.

Then he's going to shove it up my ass.

As I wait, Madonna's "Give it to me" is playing over the sound system. This strikes me as singularly inappropriate.

My mood is not improved by not having eaten for 26 hours and refraining from liquids for 14. Not to mention drinking 4 liters of gunk yesterday.

Why am I airing this unfortunate situation? Well, if I have to suffer, why shouldn't you? Also, early detection — through colonoscopy — significantly increases your chance of surviving various nastiness. So maybe if I convince one of our readers to get reamed non-recreationally, I will get some karma out of this.

I hear they give you awesome drugs. I'll let you know. See you on the other side.

No, I'm not going to liveblog it.

Edited:

Done. Feeling a bit woozy. The drugs were a disappointment. Actually had some significant discomfort during the procedure. They must have under-dosed me. Memory of it hazy. But a clean bill, which is the important thing. Still worth it.

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13 Comments

12 Comments

Charles • Sep 8, 2009 @1:41 pm

"Moon river…"
Jag • Sep 8, 2009 @2:02 pm

I give you credit for going through with it. I'm high(er) risk and had it done about 20 years ago and just can't bring myself to do it again.
Jeff Gamso • Sep 8, 2009 @2:03 pm

Every few years. The prep is worse than the event itself (much worse) because you're effectively out (and for me totally out, but I'm switching doctors now) for the event.
T. Hunt • Sep 8, 2009 @4:25 pm

Yes, as Jeff said, you're out so it's the prep that is the hard part. If you work from home and are self employed, you can arrange your schedule to contain the suffering and avoid embarrassment.

I went through my first one last year and I've just got 2 words of advice: Lime Jello!

Tom
TJIC • Sep 8, 2009 @5:23 pm

My musical tastes run more to the punk.
Patrick • Sep 8, 2009 @6:06 pm

This would have been a perfect post, if only you'd used the title of Ezra's, one below.
astonied • Sep 8, 2009 @11:49 pm

I wonder how many people that you know would have done it to you for free and saved you the ultimate F***** you will have when you read how much the doctor is charging you for having his way with you. So sorry. I am cringing just reading about it!
Don C • Sep 9, 2009 @6:34 am

I had the procedure done twenty years ago when I was in the Navy, and as I tell people, I know I am not gay, because I have had the Probinator, and it was not pleasant. I derived no pleasure….

And since the Navy does not believe in giving any more anesthesia than absolutely necessary, I was completely awake for the event, even when the damn thing felched me….
Jeffrey Ellis • Sep 9, 2009 @7:18 am

Well, your troubles are all behind you now…
Ken • Sep 9, 2009 @8:23 am

My update yesterday afternoon was necessarily limited by the drugs in the system.

DID NOT LIKE.

I can only assume they under-dosed me. My recollection is hazy, and the line between awake and not-awake was not clear, but I recall significant pain during the procedure which I could not articulate, which was unpleasant. Boo. Hiss.

Also, when I became fully aware again, I was in a room of beeping heart monitors of myself and other patients. In theory this is good. In practice the heart monitors sounded like proximity detectors. I felt like Tom Skerritt in that scene in Alien when the monster is coming for him in the ducts.
Don Keefhardt • Sep 9, 2009 @9:45 am

I had one this winter, and was WIDE-FREAKIN-AWAKE during the whole thing. Kinda cool, actually…had a great view of the big LCD flat-panel, and got to watch the whole process. Uncomfortable part was, for me, related to the air they use to "inflate" your tract, to get some headroom for the camera/rammer/phone pole thingy.

"Vengance is mine"….as your lying about afterwards, under the doting care of a nurse, you're encourged to expell some of that excess air. I demonstrated virtuoso skills….think "1812 Overture", heavy on the bass.

Now all of you get back to work.
Jen • Sep 9, 2009 @11:10 am

You were absolutely underdosed. I have had two colonoscopies and an upper GI in the last 8 years (yay Crohn's) and have absolutely no recollection of any part of them, from the time they take me in the cold stainless steel room to the time I wake up in recovery. Also, there's not supposed to be pain, just discomfort (unless you underwent some subprocedure other than just the scoping). Even biopsies aren't supposed to be particularly painful.

Find someone else next time to do this. The prep is really, really supposed to be the worst part.