Tomorrow the torture starts and I feel like I'm on death row ..

[Thumper]

Tonight Lynn is making one of my favorite meals and enough of it so I can pig out 'til I can't eat any more. That's a GOOD thing.

BUT ... I feel like I'm on death row and this is my last meal request. Tomorrow, I'll be flushing it all out as I start the tortuous day before the ol' colonoscopy.

After supper tonight, I won't be able to eat again until Thursday afternoon ... and I'll spend ALL DAY AND NIGHT tomorrow sitting on the throne in my reading room.

Dang, these things aren't all that bad really ... I'm asleep as it's happening ... it's just the prep work that'll kill ya'! Tomorrow's gonna be a really crappy day (pun intended).

[jb]

But you'll be squeaky clean, hell your farts will be both colorless and odorless, how much better is that for Lynn?

[johnboy]

Way, way TMI!!!

[Thumper]

It's not worth avoiding Sunny. I know the prep really sucks, but heck, what is it, every 5 years? One day of misery won't kill you ... GET'R DONE!!!

[Big Muddy]

Did I just hear a tremendous fart, emanating from the Florida area???....there's a brown mushroom cloud on the radar, too.

[LJ3]

Sack up, princesses. It's just having the squirts for a while. It's not that bad. Of course, dying of colon or anal cancer seems like something reasonable to weigh against having the shits for a day. I'm sure it's a quick and easy death. Watching your life shrivel away to nothing while your family watches in horror. Only takes a year or two to die from it.

[Thumper]

No brown farts today .... just brown squirts. I call it "The Hershey Squirts". If none of you have done this yet, you will some day. Should start once you hit 50 yrs. old. I "think" I have it done every 5 years ... can't remember ... the VA sends me a note when I'm due.

Actually, I had my last meal last night and am wondering when I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. I've been off of all vitamins and supplements for a week now and start the tough part this afternoon. NOTHING to eat all day except maybe some clear broth ... NOT exciting. NO food ... just gots ta' drink a ton of clear liquids ALL DAY LONG UNTIL MIDNIGHT!!

Today's fun REALLY starts at 1:00:

1:00 PM - gots ta' take 3 Dulcolax tablets (like super-charged Exlax) with 8 oz. water or clear liquid.
5:00 PM - gots ta' drink an entire 238 gram bottle of Miralax with 64 oz. of Gatorade. (have ta' drink an 8oz glass of the stuff every 15 - 30 mins.)
10:00 PM - got's ta' drink a 10oz bottle of Citrate of Magnesia (Mag Citrate).

Drink, drink, DRINK clear liquids until midnight ... then NOTHING! Oh, the fun part? Once I get started at 1:00 pm ... it's RUN ... don't walk ... to the crapper every 2 minutes ... ALL DAY LONG!

Ok, now I'll be crapping all night long ...and at 4:30 am, I'm supposed to take my b/p & cholesterol meds.

Have to be at the clinic by 7:30 AM and the procedure is scheduled for 8:30 AM.

Of course, by time I get out'a there, I've had NOTHING to eat for the past 40 hours or so. Last time I was STARVING and when the procedure was completed, I had Lynn take me to my favorite Thai place for lunch. Just before I was served, the nausea from the anesthesia kicked in and I thought I was gonna barf up my toenails ... I couldn't eat a bite! Can't remember when I was finally able to get something down.

NOT FUN but it's only every 5 years or so ... so it's just one'a those things ya' gots ta' do when ya' gets "old". DO NOT avoid this procedure ... I lost a close friend to colon cancer a few years back. He was healthy as an ox and had no clue as he'd never been checked. Prevention is not a problem if they catch it with a check-up. (Ya' hear me Sunny?)

[Thumper]

Thanks for the Public Service Announcement Lenster ... you posted as I was typing. I agree and have witnessed a friend going through colon cancer first hand. NOT a fun way to go. I'll live with one day of misery every 5 years. Heck, I've lived through a LOT worse!

[LJ3]

You can have fun with it. Catch up on your reading, get a Nintendo game boy for the throne. You could have eaten peanuts last night and then played a guessing game as to when they blasted from your colonic regions Eat a marble just for fun. Make Lynn guess when within 30 minutes fo when it cracks the toilet bowl.

[Thumper]

No go on the peanuts. Instructions state: ONE WEEK prior to procedure, STOP EATING all nuts, seeds, popcorn and corn until after procedure.

I notice they didn't say a thing about marbles though!

[quercus alba]

I really really knew I should have stayed away from this topic

[Thumper]

Wow! Just had a cup of chicken broth for lunch. That was exciting ... NOT!

[BarryBobPosthole]

I'm sure it was much more meaningful for the chicken.

BKB

[Buckrub]

Chicken or rooster?

[Thumper]

I only do hens.

[Thumper]

Just took three Dulcolax ... let the fun begin!

[Buckrub]

I only do hens.

yeah, right.........the ones with adams apples.

[BaseballCoach (Rev A)]

My wife was having some bruising issues so they sent her for the probe. Her prep was 4 damn days long. Started liquids only on a Friday along with laxatives. Each day the stuff got more and more serious until she had the procedure on Monday. They ended up cutting a bunch of polyps out, enough that she has to go back yearly now. Not sure I can handle those 4 days every year for the rest of my life, that is a lot of crap.

[Big Boy]

ABOUT THE WRITER: Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.

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 throughMinneapolis . 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 graphic, 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 and 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 is, 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' had 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 yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of 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.

[Thumper]

Well, I just drank my last bottle of nasty stuff an hour ago and have basically been on the throne since noon! Man this sucks ... and to top it off, I'm STARVING! My stomach is gurgling as I type this and I have a feeling I'll have to run in a minute or so, but I'm getting used to it. I have no idea how I'm supposed to sleep tonight ... or even IF I'll sleep. So far, I see no end in sight ... plus I have to take some pills at 4:30 am and be at the hospital at 7:30 am. Arrrggghhh!

I think I told this story before .... when I went in for my first colonoscopy, I was on the gurney and the doc and nurse were there explaining the procedure. Then the doc shows me the little camera thingy that was going to be shoved up my "normally" exit-only! It was kinda cool ... like a little tv camera and he was just pointing it around the room as I watched on the screen. Then the nurse asked me to follow her into a small room next to the OR and have a seat. There were three other guys in there also waiting. We chatted and wondered what lay ahead of us as the nurse sat at a desk doing some sort of paperwork. Finally one of the guys asked the nurse when they'd be getting started. We all awaited the answer as I wondered if we'd go in one at a time, or if there were multiple doctors doing the procedure in adjoining rooms.

The nurse looked at us like we were from Mars and stated, "You guys are in the RECOVERY room!" Heck, we'd already had the procedure done and not one of us even realized it! Man-o-man, those are some GOOD drugs!

[Big Skyz]

Thinking of you Jimmy.

[Thumper]

Ha ha! Ummm .... thanks??

[Big Muddy]

Well, can we ASSume that you survived the camera-up-your-butt ordeal???

What was the doc's report???....I mean, besides you having a smelly butt.

Djeetyeet???

[Thumper]

Gonna make a separate post in a few. Yep, I PIGGED out at Golden Corral as soon as they released me! I needed a colon refill!