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Since my husband, Randy, retired, we’ve been knee-deep in togetherness. I turn around — and there’s Randy. We now go to doctor appointments together, grocery shop together, take Pilates classes together and enjoy lunches with my girlfriends. In January, we went to the gastroenterologist together. Randy had the 11 a.m. appointment. I had the 11:30. We were told we both needed colonoscopies. So, of course, we scheduled them together.
Like any normal human being, I’m not a fan of colonoscopies. For my first welcome-to-your-50s one, I thought there must have been a terrible mistake when the pharmacist handed me a plastic salt-filled jug bigger than my head. It didn’t help that she was wincing.
I’ve never managed to drink eight glasses of regular water a day and now I needed to down eight glasses of this concoction. If ever I moaned, whined, felt sorry for myself or wanted to lodge a complaint against the AMA, it was during the prep.
The next morning, my doctor waltzed into the room, smiling, and said: “So, how were the margaritas?” I’m glad he thought my night of misery was amusing. He asked if I’d like to stay alert enough to watch the process on his overhead screen and maybe even get to see some polyps. I took a hard pass. Everything went swimmingly but what was with the take-home photos? Did I ask for them? Did I want them? My gynecologist never felt compelled to give me a slide show of my vagina.
Ten years and a different doctor later, instead of the giant jug, I received a prescription for two small bottles, one for the night before and one for the morning of. Totally doable! However my timing must have been off, and I didn’t show up at the appointment with a clean house.
Oh, they can work around that, I told myself, because I was too embarrassed to tell the doctor I’d flunked the flushing out procedures. This proved to be a tactical error on my part when, afterward, I was told I’d have to repeat the test. So, back to the two bottles and an earlier kick-off time. This time, I got a thumbs-up along with a report that I had a “particularly tortured colon.”
A tortured colon is extra long and has all sorts of turning and twisting. If Six Flags wanted to design a super scary, twisty roller coaster, my colon could serve as inspiration. The doctor said he’d never seen one quite like it. I wasn’t sure if he was complaining … or impressed. He retired before it was time for Colonoscopy #3, which brings us back to Randy and me.
The new doctor started describing our prep and — what?! — he was talking about THE GIANT JUG!
In all this time, despite AI computers and all the medical geniuses out there, nobody had come up with an easier way to scoop out colons?
“Wait a moment! What about two little bottles?” I said.
“Medicare might not cover the bottles,” the doctor said.
“I’ll pay retail,” I responded quickly.
He agreed to prescribe the bottles.
I invented my own prep. Now, don’t go running off taking my advice on this because I’m not a medical school graduate. So, talk to your doctor, not non-doctor Linda here. but four days in advance, I stopped eating solids. I just had soups and smoothies. And every day, I popped laxatives. Then, early in the afternoon before my procedure, I chugged little bottle #1, determined that this time I wouldn’t end up needing a do-over.
Meanwhile, Randy was going for the Big Guns, confident he’d ease through the process with his jug. He kept rolling his eyes at my strategy, saying I was being overdramatic. His eye-rolling lasted until 5 p.m., when he was first getting rolling and I announced that I was all done and in the clear!
The next morning, we explained our marital tandem timing to our nurse. She laughed and said, “You should have waited until Valentine’s Day.” We changed into our matching blue hospital gowns and were rolled on our matching gurneys side by side into a waiting area.
I volunteered to go first, not because I was noble, but because I wanted to get it over with. I told Randy, “We can’t go in together unless that doctor has some special two-sided hose.”
Our upbeat anesthesiologist dropped by to say appropriate anesthesiologist things. IVs were inserted. The next thing I knew, I was waking up. The nice nurse offered us apple juice and graham crackers. I didn’t know graham crackers even existed anymore, but they are as yummy as they were in nursery school.
Here's the good news: when my doctor gave me my post-procedure wrap-up, he told me I should never have another colonoscopy. Apparently, my colon is so tortured and THIN that “it would be dangerous” (his words, not mine) ever to have this procedure again.
“Thin?” I said. “Does that mean it might blow up?!”
“No,” he said. “It would just be too difficult.”
For whom? I wanted to ask but decided not to push my luck. It’s not like I want a future rendezvous.
Randy, though, has a healthy, hardy colon. The doctor wants to see him again in 2035. I’ll check my schedule. If I'm not busy that day, I’ll offer to pick him up. What could be more romantic?
How often do YOU get a colonoscopy? How do you deal with the prep? Let us know in the comments below.
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