by Jeff M. Brown
“In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.” – E.B. White
“I can think of some body parts, one in particular, that I wouldn’t want to turn over to anybody.” – Jeff Brown
Where no Man has Gone Before
(Part I)
As I write this column, I’m literally starving to death. All I’ve had to eat today is a pop sickle and a couple Jolly Ranchers. That’s about to change, however, because I’m about to eat lunch: a steamy hot cup of chicken broth. Oh, yeah, look out tummy here it comes!
Perhaps the lack of sustenance is causing me to be a little over dramatic, but I’m light-headed and I swear I can feel my strength, my very life force, slowly slipping away. I’m sure I won’t be able to type for very much longer because the caloric demand of striking the keys is stealing energy from my brain. Soon, I’ll forget to breathe. The resulting lack of oxygen will most certainly cause me to lapse into a coma. I’ll probably die right here in front of the computer, hopefully, long before the procedure for which I am preparing for takes place.
Am I trying to lose weight? No. (My wife says she wants me to bulk up, but that’s fodder for another column.) Am I on a hunger strike in support of President Obama taking yet another summer vacation? (Hey, my president needs to be thoroughly rested and fresh before his next golf outing.) Certainly not. What I am doing is getting ready for something so unspeakably horrible that space aliens and human doctors normally render their victims, er patients, unconscious for the act.
I’m having a colonoscopy tomorrow.
According to the literature my doctor gave me, a colonoscopic examination is done by “inserting a long flexible lighted tube into the rectum and beyond.” It’s the whole “and beyond” part of that sentence that is especially disturbing to me. It almost sounds Star Trekish. Jeff’s Colon, The Final Frontier. The mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Frankly, I’d like to keep it that way.
Imagine this…
It’s early morning and you flip on the TV to see what’s going on in the world. Sure enough, there’s breaking news and a familiar Fox anchor holding a microphone says, “This is Geraldo Rivera reporting live from Jeff’s colon. This is truly an amazing day folks. Finally, after all these years, I think I’ve found the true location of Al Capone’s treasure.”
The whole point of having a colonoscopy is to look for polyps, which, I believe, are closely related to voles. My doctor says they’re the last things you want running around unchecked inside your colon. If a polyp is discovered during the examination, according to my patient information sheet, “a thin snare wire is passed through the colonoscope and the polyp is encircled. The snare is tightened and an electric current is passed through the wire, which cuts off the polyp.” The polyp (or vole) is then brought out of the colon and sent to the exterminator for further examination.
What I’m really worried about are possible complications of the colonoscopy and polypectomy (vole removal). They include perforation of the colon (jagged, gaping holes caused by the colonoscope crossing the center lane and skidding out of control), hemorrhage from the colon (mass exodus of polyps out the hole and into other areas of my body such as my cerebrum), and side effects due to the medicines that are given (sedatives, which I hope are given to me in extremely large quantities because I absolutely, under no circumstances, want to be awake for this). “In very rare circumstances,” says my literature, “death could result from a complication.”
That is, of course, if I survive the starvation diet and impending colon cleansing (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) which I have to perform in a few short hours.
To be continued…
