You Want To Show My What On TV?
©2001, Gordon Kirkland

It was definitely a good way to knock the crap out of my day – and the day before – and a good part of the next day too.

I’ve reached that age that makes it important to keep a closer watch on certain health issues. I’ve always found it quite easy to watch my weight. I just look down and there it is sitting where my perfectly rippled abdominal muscles should be. Despite cohabitating with two teenagers throughout the Nineties, I’ve managed to enter the new century with my blood pressure at an acceptable level. I also watch my intake of noxious substances. I don’t smoke, I average less than a half a drink containing alcohol weekly, and I never, ever let broccoli pass my lips.

For the past twelve years though, I have been an incomplete paraplegic. I guess that’s fitting, because my wife says I never finish anything I start. It means that I still have some use of my legs. It has, however meant that I have lost the feelings related to certain internal bodily functions.

On what I hoped would be a routine visit to my doctor, he decided that the time had come for a prostate exam. I can think of no better reason to avoid visiting a doctor than the prospect of a prostate exam. Doctors tell me that they can think of no better reason for staying home from work than the prospect of doing a prostate exam. The fact that neither of us enjoys it doesn’t make it feel any less undignified, but I must say I’m just as glad to know that my doctor doesn’t gain any particular pleasure it.

I usually try to lighten the atmosphere by saying things like, "Well, now I know how Kermit the Frog felt with Jim Henson's hand up his butt!" or "If you find a set of car keys up there, please put them back. I keep the spare in there in case I ever lock myself out of the car."

When he had completed the task at hand (so to speak) he said that my rectal tone wasn’t very good. Naturally I apologized immediately, even though I didn’t hear a tone coming out of my rectum while he was rooting around in there.

He decided that my lack of feeling in that region might make it a good idea to let a specialist have a look-see to make sure cancer cells weren’t making a home for themselves in my colon.

Now it should be said that I like my doctor, and I’m not just saying that because I know he reads this publication. I thought he liked me too. Oh, how wrong I was.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I must have done something to really tick him off to give him the idea that I should be subjected to the torture of a colonoscopy. My biggest fear is that he might have sent me there with some misguided notion that I might enjoy it – not that there is anything wrong with the people who do enjoy having what feels like three miles of pressurized fire hose going in the out door.

The day before the schedule unveiling of my inner workings I was told to drink a bottle of a liquid that would clear out my colon. We aren’t talking any simple, everyday, run of the mill clearing out here. I think a half-bottle of this stuff could clear out a gray whale’s colon. I spent the rest of the day living in constant fear that I might be more than five steps from the bathroom when I only had time for four.

I’m going to keep this stuff in mind the next time I get a cough, the hiccups or a cold. Administering the recommended adult dose might not cure a cough, the hiccups or the common cold, but I’d definitely be afraid to cough, hiccup, or sneeze after a tablespoon or two of it.

On the morning of the procedure I had to repeat the process and drink another bottle of the human equivalent of Liquid Plumber®. I felt flushed. Not flushed in the sense of blushing, just flushed, like someone had pushed down a silver handle on my forehead.
The specialist explained the procedure to me before he began. I almost wish he hadn’t. The gist of it was that he would be inserting a television camera where nothing should ever be inserted. The camera was on the end of a device that looked remarkably like something I’ve seen a plumber use to unclog a drain.

One possible complication is perforation in which a tear through the wall of the bowel may allow leakage of intestinal fluids, which could lead to death. Hearing that is just not a good way to keep me calm, cool, and relaxed. He also said that it was possible I might have a bit of discomfort at certain points during the process.

Ya think…?

I’ve always marveled at how doctors can refer to something that feels like someone has set off a concussion grenade deep within your personal recesses as “a bit of discomfort…”

In actual fact, the camera itself was small enough that it didn’t cause much of a problem. I think the real pain came when he tried to shove up a tripod up there to steady it.
More disconcerting than the actual procedure was the fact that the whole thing was broadcast live on a color television set in front of me. I saw a side of myself that I never really ever had any desire to see. On a twenty-seven-inch color TV it was a larger than life view.

At least I hope it was larger than life…

I really expected to hear the voice of a narrator, just like those science shows on the TV channels I’m generally too squeamish to watch, “As we go forth boldly to explore where no one has ever gone before, we are witnessing the birth of a gas bubble that will eventually lead to flatulence in the patient’s car on his way home. It will be of such great proportions that his dog will try to burrow through the back seat to escape into the trunk…”

In the end, well at least in that end, the test showed that I was free of the harbingers of colorectal cancer.

As relieved as that makes me, it was still a real pain in the butt to get the answer.

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