Bruce Cameron - Nov. 5, 2009

A Probing Look at My Colonoscopy

As I revealed in my column last week, my primary physician wanted me to have a colonoscopy because she was worried that the way things were going with my health care this year I might not exceed my deductible. She sent me to a specialist: a man who specializes in taking a camera and, well, tailgating people with it.

I did not want to meet this man.

The specialist, Doctor Cattleprod, was very jovial. “I’ve done 14,000 of these, so I’ve seen everything,” he assured me.

“Everything?” I gulped. “So like ... a Buick? A live chicken?”

“A Buick?” he repeated, frowning. Then he laughed, “No, I don’t mean up there. I just mean I’m the Chesley B. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger of gastroenterologists.”

Sully Sullenberger is the pilot who landed an airplane in the Hudson River. Dr. Cattleprod was telling me that my colonoscopy was going to be like a bird strike followed by near drowning. He showed me a plastic model of a snake-like thing. “Bruce, do you know what this is?”

“Yes. It is one of those creatures from the movie ‘Tremors.’”

He said actually it was a model of a human large intestine, but he did agree that it was not as pleasant to look at as some other body parts we could name. He showed me the path that his probe would take, winding around the descending colon, traversing the transverse colon, through the Eisenhower tunnel and all the way down to where the appendix sticks out like an afterthought.

Actually, I didn’t really hear any of this, because I sort of stopped listening at the word “probe.” I sat there doing what medical professionals call “Lamaze breathing” while Dr. Cattleprod chattered away. “So, you get the thrust of what I am saying? Is anything I’m saying penetrating?” He told me he was going to take a movie of the whole area and, if I wanted, would give me a copy of the video so my tube could be on YouTube.

He then asked me if I had taken the medication I’d been prescribed — in other words, was I starving, thirsty and sore from having spent the previous 24 hours in the bathroom?

I assured him there was nothing left in my system. In fact, I was pretty sure there was nothing left of my system. The stuff he’d given me to clean me out had eaten through my pipes — all he needed to do was shine a flashlight in my mouth and he’d be able to see all the way to the caboose.

Dr. Cattleprod told me he was ready to begin the procedure and that I should stop whimpering and clinging to the nurse. “You’ll be awake the whole time, but you won’t remember a thing,” he soothingly assured me.

“Isn’t that what happens to trauma victims?” I demanded.

I changed into the hospital gown, which was very comfortable and flattering to wear. I lay on my side, very conscious of the air currents in the room. “Can you count backward from 100?” the nurse asked me.

“Of course I can,” I said. “I’ve just never done it with four people staring at my butt.”

“Bruce,” she said.

“Oh, right, right. 100, 99 ...”

“No, you don’t have to do that, the procedure is over.”

She wasn’t kidding — though I was never fully anesthetized, the drugs they gave me made it so I literally couldn’t remember. Why can’t they give you the same stuff after your first junior high dance? She showed me the video, and sure enough, there it all was, completely clean except for some damage done by the burrito of ‘84.

As readers of my column know, I am a very courageous man unless there’s any actual danger. Due to family history issues, I was supposed to have a colonoscopy a few years ago, but I had been stalling due to an irrational fear of having a video camera shoved up my Eisenhower tunnel.

The fear was misplaced. There was no discomfort — if your doctor recommends the procedure and you’ve been putting it off, I’m here to tell you, it’s no more arduous than taking a nap.

Get the thrust of what I’m saying, here?

To write Bruce Cameron,

visit his Website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com. ators.com.

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