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Community Corner

It Will All Work Out in The End

An untimely snowstorm makes Humor Columnist Ron Culberson realize that snow shoveling may not be all that bad

If you’re over 50 and you have not yet had a colonoscopy, pick up the phone and schedule one right now. There’s no reason to avoid it.

Unless, of course, you object to purging your entire digestive system and then letting a doctor, who by the way chose to focus on patients’ hind quarters for a living, insert a small (and by small I mean huge) video camera up inside you to see if he can find a polyp or two. Then, you may prefer to schedule a root canal without anesthesia instead.

But, colonoscopies do save lives. So I suggest you get over your rectaphobia, bend over and just do it.

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Knowing the importance of colonoscopies for detecting treatable cancer, I told my physician that I wanted to schedule one right after I turned 50. And no, I don’t have some weird fascination with proctology. It’s just that I worked in hospice care and know the dangers of avoiding preventive check ups.

I contacted the local Colonoscopies R Us Supercenter and picked a time in January when my speaking schedule tends to be slower. I completed 750 pre-procedure forms that asked for my medical history, my eating habits, my bowel routines and whether the bathroom plumbing in our house worked properly. That last question gave me pause.

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I returned the forms and several days later I received an instruction sheet with a prescription for “MoviPrep,” a dynamic cleansing solution (with a clever name I must say that is not referring to the anticipation of a blockbuster cinema experience).

If you’re not familiar with colonoscopies, you’ve lived a blessed, but sheltered life. Basically, the procedure involves inserting a camera-equipped tube into your colon as a way to detect abnormalities, especially cancer. From what I’ve heard, the procedure itself is easy—because your asleep.

It’s the preparation process that deters most reasonable humans because you have to eliminate any obstacles in your colon that would obstruct the view of the camera.  This is where the MoviPrep comes in...or out as it were. MoviPrep is an industrial strength laxative that cleans you out from top to bottom. You must drink 32 ounces of MoviPrep over a one-hour period the night before the procedure and then another 32 ounces the morning of the procedure. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The day before the procedure I was limited to clear fluids only. So, I stocked up on a variety of bouillon, sparkling drinks, fruit juice and teas to trick my body into thinking that I was eating. It didn’t work. By 7:30 a.m., I was famished. I considered chewing up an Oreo cookie then spitting it out just to get the flavor of food but was afraid that a piece of it might get into my colon and look like cancer. So, I drank lots of juice.

At 5 p.m., the real fun began. It was time to drink the first round of MoviPrep. To make the gulping process fun, I drank from my commemorative Kiawah Golf Resort glass. The way I figured it, I had played crappy at Kiawah so it was the perfect glass to use in this similarly crappy situation.

The MoviPrep tasted like a mix of aspirin, chrome and a hint of lemon with the consistency of watered down glue. The first glass wasn’t too bad—but I held my breath.

The second glass didn’t go down so easily. I had accidentally breathed and now the taste was permanently ingrained in my brain.

The third glass made me frumph a couple of times. A frumph is that cough-dry heave-burp combination when you don’t know if something is going to come back up.

I had to force the last glass down. There was multiple frumphing.

Then I waited. Fifteen minutes. Thirty. Forty five. One hour.

At about the 78 minute mark, the MoviPrep had made its way to the target. It started with a rumble that snaked its way down to my colon. Then, it burst through me like an NFL lineman. I made it to the bathroom in time but from that point on, I spent the majority of my evening there. Luckily, I had newspapers, magazines and a couple of 500-page novels within reach.

After about three hours, the rumbling slowed a bit.

By 10:30, I was nearly done.

The final count was seventeen “MoviPrep Moments.” I estimate that I was 20 pounds lighter at that point.

Then, the unexpected happened. Something that wasn’t on the instruction sheet nor did anyone warn me about it. The worst possible outcome of five hours of continuous colon cleansing.

It was a phone call.

“Mr. Culberson. This is Mary at Dr. Mirken’s office. Due to the snow storm, our office will be closed tomorrow. We’ll need to reschedule your colonoscopy.”

In an act of defiance, I threw the next round of MoviPrep out the kitchen window into the accumulating snow. The strain sent me back to the bathroom one more time.

Until that moment, my biggest complaint about snowstorms had been the shoveling.

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