ABOUT THE WRITER
Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for
the Miami
Herald.
Colonoscopy Journal:
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 through Minneapolis.
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, '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, 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.
On the subject of
Colonoscopies...
Colonoscopies are no joke, but
these comments during the exam were
quite humorous..... A physician claimed that the following
are actual
comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he
was performing
their colonoscopies:
1. 'Take it easy, Doc.
You're boldly going where no man has gone
before!'
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart
yet?'
3. 'Can you hear me
NOW?'
4. 'Are we there yet? Are
we there yet? Are we there yet?'
5. 'You know, in Arkansas,
we're now legally married.'
6. 'Any sign of the trapped
miners, Chief?'
7. 'You put your left hand
in; you take your left hand out....'
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a
Muppet feels!'
9. 'If your hand
doesn't fit, you must quit!'
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know
if you find my dignity.'
11. 'You used to be an
executive at Enron, didn't you?'
12. 'God, now I know why I
am not gay.'
And the best one of all:
13. 'Could you write a note
for my wife saying that my head is not
up there?'
Inspirational Quotes
