Today was a headliner for me. I had my first colonoscopy! It is recommended to have a screening by the time you are age 50. I put it off for a few years and I probably would have waited indefinitely except for one thing. I visited the GYN last spring, (another one of my favorite things to do) and she told me that I needed to go have a screening. I told her that I would and then promptly left her office thinking "it'll be a cold day in you know where when I actually do it." Well, last week, I got a phone call from the gastro-enterologists office asking to set up an appointment! I had already dodged them once about a month ago. Anyway, the result of that second phone call ended up in today's activity.
I'm not really sure why I decided to post about this but here goes. After getting the phone call from the office, they did a very brief medical history and then told me that they would send me information for the "prep" in the mail. By Monday the 3rd, I hadn't heard anything from them and so I thought that maybe I was going to dodge this bullet, but being the responsible person that I am, I called them and picked up the info and Rx's for the upcoming event. I've still never received anything in the mail. Once I looked over everything, about four pages of instructions and four Rx's, I was ready but not really willing to start. Those of you that have done this before will understand my hesitancy.
I started Monday night, Aug 3, with just a few fairly powerful stool softeners. No big deal. Until Tuesday morning. Then all day Tuesday I could only have clear liquids. I'm a big fan of diet coke and diet coke is a clear liquid so I was pretty okay with this but about half way through the day, I started to get pretty hungry. I then changed to a little juice and orange pop so my blood glucose didn't get too low. Controlling my blood sugars was really quite simple and didn't cause any added problems. The instructions that they give to you are quite specific and I was to start the hard core prep at 5:30 PM that same day. I had a Relief Society Pres meeting at 5:00 and we usually visit some sisters first and then meet for an hour afterwards. As you can guess, we met first and then I went home to do my thing and the Presidency went visiting after. When I got home, I started drinking the massive gallon of colyte prep. (thank goodness I had mixed it earlier and put it in the fridge to get cold) After about an hour of drinking this nasty stuff, the real fun began. I was to drink half of it at 6:00 PM and the other half 5 hours before my exam. I found that if I held my breath while drinking the colyte, and then breathing with my mouth open for a few seconds afterwards, the really strong taste would disappear and it wasn't quite so nauseating. So, right on schedule, everything started to move! Have you ever felt like you were peeing from somewhere other than your bladder? I'm sure you can get the idea. About another hour into this and after changing my underwear a few times, I had decided to never do this again! Things eventually calmed down but I had to start this over again at 2:30 AM. I think I slept about 30 minutes that night. I was worried about waking up late and I sure didn't want to repeat this another time so I just stayed up. I would have had to anyway since I couldn't stray too far from the bathroom.
By 7:00 AM we were ready to leave for my 7:30 appointment. Here's the great part. You think that it's going to be really miserable with that garden hose placed where you don't really want it but I really don't remember much. They give you some really great drugs. (versed, fentanyl) I didn't even feel embarrassed. I don't know what I said or did and I got a really great nap out of it. There was no pain involved at all. I remember them talking to me at the end and I even remember watching it on the screen but that's all I can remember. We left about 15 minutes after we were done and stopped at Burger King for breakfast and then I'm pretty sure we stopped for gas and then went home. I took a really long nap and now I feel pretty good. I still don't want to do this again but it's over and the prep really is the worst part of it all. Oh yea, after all that you go through you don't even loose any weight.
I couldn't help but laugh as I read your post. Of course, thats easy for me to do since I've yet to experience this. Oh, and from the title of the post, I was expecting pictures. Maybe its a good thing you didn't post any. :) I'm glad you don't remember it and I hope that by the time I have to go through this someone has invented something that will make me not remember the prep as well. Hope the results are good.
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