The Procedure

After months of a problem, unknown amounts of internet research and two different doctors visits; it was determined that I would need to get a colonoscopy this past Friday.

I will spare you the gory details, promise.

Now that that is out of the way: one of my biggest reasons for sharing this is because 1) there are several hilarious moments and 2) I was begging people for information about this before I went into it because I was scared to death, so maybe this will help others before they go into it.

Because lets face it, no one is clear from the wrath of a colonoscopy once you hit the age of 40 (I think is the magic age). And though that may be awhile a way for some of us, it's still just good to know in case something pops up like it did with me.

So for the weeks leading up to the procedure I was seriously the most scared about going for two days without solid food. I get shaky hungry if I am late at eating one meal, how was I going to deal with missing six normal meals?

As it turns out, yeah you are hungry, but it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. They maybe could have mentioned that "the solution" you drink is an electrolyte drink. That would have eased the nerves. Plus, I asked the doctor if I could take a few benadryl to basically knock me out, and that really seemed to help me forget about ever being hungry. So all the panicking I did about being hungry was basically for nothing. Though, I would highly recommend that benadryl to others thinking the hunger issue might bother them.

"The solution." Oh the solution. There are apparently different ones. And I would like to think that the one I had was the worst. But there is zero evidence to back that up.

Picking up my solution from the pharmacy came with a few surprises. One the size of the prescription, it actually came in a large brown paper sack! Never seen a prescription that big, ever. That was due to "the solution" needing a gallon container for water to be mixed with it. That's right, you heard me correctly, a GALLON of "the solution." Second, "the solution" came with four different flavor packs, which to choose (I'll get to that in a moment)? And last, it came with anti-nausea medicine. So you mean I am going to feel nauseous during this too?

When it came to the flavor packets, you had four choices: pineapple, lemon-lime, orange and cherry. What a decision! I mean, you will be drinking a gallon of the flavor. Better not pick a bad one!

Which I did. Note to yourself for the future do NOT go with lemon-lime because it seems the least-nauseous making. Because this solution tasted like it was just salt water and mixing something that is salty just amplifies the salt, therefore making it a thousand times more gross and salty.

Although, I've played devils advocate on this and have come to the conclusion that no matter what flavor packet I started with I would have ended up hating it. And that is because salt water is really not meant to be mixed with anything except for fish and other things found in the ocean.

And my assumption that the solution "made you feel sick" was wrong. It's not like it is something that makes your stomach hurt. As I found out, the reason for the anti-nausea medicine is because "the solution" is SOOOOOO disgusting that you feel sick drinking it.

It actually reminded me of playing power hour. Minus the fun and good taste of beer that comes drinking alcohol during power hour. But I found myself looking at the clock wanting to cry because it was time that I needed to drink more, just like power hour. They want you to drink 8 ounces every fifteen minutes. When you factor in the fact that it is disgusting, that is a hard task to do!

Thursday night I was supposed to drink half a gallon of the solution, which I (almost) accomplished. The next day I couldn't think of even trying to drink more without changing the flavor. So don't ask me why, but cherry was the one that seemed the best to me (it sounds disgusting to me now). But cherry is what got me through (well cherry AND lemon-lime, because I had to mix the whole thing when I originally picked a flavor). Don't get me wrong, I still don't think I could drink a gallon of cherry, but I would say it was better than lemon-lime.

By the time for the procedure came around, I was ready for it. The facility was inside the hospital, in what they said was room 105. When I asked where room 105 was they sent us (Emily was with me to drive me) to a patient room in the maternity ward. Luckily we figured that out just before it got awkward (and we walked in on a new family and had to explain things and say how lovely their child was). So we politely went back to the desk and clearly explained what I was there for and they showed me the OTHER, well-hidden, room 105 (wouldn't someone giving directions figure more people are headed that way than a patient room?).

If you know me, I would love to tell you about every last second of my time at the facility, but I will try to keep to the interesting parts. First was conversation with the anesthesiologist, which went something like this:

Anesthesiologist: "So you had your TB taken care of?" (I went ahead and changed what I thought she said to what I thought made more sense. That was my first mistake. And what I thought made more sense was "Did I take the pregnancy test?" Which they sneakily did do a pregnancy test on me and told me just before she arrived that I was in fact not pregnant, duh.)

Me: "Yes, I took care of that."

Anesthesiologist: "And how long ago was that?"

Me: "Oh, about five minutes ago."

Anesthesiologist (with a look of confusion on her face): "Uhhhhhhhhhhh.................................. I mean the tuberculosis, when did you get that taken care of." (Now I am thinking she must be talking about some vaccine I had to get back in the day.)

Me: "I don't know, sometime back when I was in grade school."

Anesthesiologist (now with a very concerned/annoyed look on her face): "I mean when did you have tuberculosis and how did you take care of it?"

Me: "Okay, I really am confused and have no idea what you are talking about."

Anesthesiologist: "Was there ever a time in your life where you were sick for months and probably in the hospital, because that would be what happened if you had tuberculosis?"

Me: "Uhhh, no. Actually, definitely no. That never happened, sorry."

Apparently, somewhere in my chart someone had checked tuberculosis. Just a small little thing for such a serious disease. I hope that check was erased from my chart!

But the easy part was being put under. Though I was sad I didn't get the typical "count down from five." But then again, the anesthesiologist probably didn't want to put out anything else that could potentially confuse us both. I thought about doing a count-down anyway, but by the time I devised that plan I was out cold.

There were about three stages of waking up. The first is when they were wheeling me out of the room and telling me everything was fine and things were still really foggy for me. The second was after they had me sitting in a chair and I all of a sudden started understanding things. The third was when I stopped feeling heavy and totally back to normal. All of these happened within 30 minutes of the procedure, I'd say.

But the final outcome of the whole experience is that I have hemorrhoids. Which is very unusual for someone that hasn't had children. But very common for members of my family (male or female, with children or without). It's what I thought was the problem before I ever went to the doctor, but you can never be too sure. The doctor said that since I am young he does want to remove them. I will spare details. But they will be small procedures, not requiring being put to sleep and will be done one-by-one (for a total of three). Hopefully these will be insignificant and not blog-worthy.

Honestly, as long as I don't have to drink a gallon of lemon-lime salt-water, I am fine with whatever it takes to get rid of these things.

I am kinda surprised I did come up with having anything at all, I mean, I am the person that had TB about five minutes ago but then took care of it. Sounds like I have some sort-of superhero immune system to me!