Evil Gloating And Other Fun Things To Do With A Colonoscopy

If someone had told me 20 years ago that my future self would pay a man thousands of dollars to look up my butt with a camera, I would have done the whole “laugh in their face” thing (you know – HA! HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!  I laugh in your face!).  I mean, come on.  That had to be a joke, right?

When I turned 40, other 40-somethings told me how 40 was the decade all your shit started to fall apart.  Things like memory issues, bifocals, orthopedics, memory issues, hot flashes, support hose, bursitis, memory issues, heartburn, incontinence, tendonitis, memory issues and root canals.  And let’s not forget the start of yearly mammograms.  Oh, and memory issues.

Turning 50 is great, because you think all the bad stuff has happened already.  You walk into your yearly physical (because no matter what else happens, you still have to pay someone to look up your va-jay-jay-jay with a flashlight) and you are full of cocky attitude.  “Bring it on,” you say. “Hit me with your best shot,” you say. “Come at me, Bro,” you say – all while dancing around like Muhammad Ali on steroids.

Your doctor just calmly looks at you, and smiles, “So, when would you like to schedule your colonoscopy?”

Bam.  One punch knockout.

Colonoscopy stories, like birthing stories, are filled with horrific detail and evil gloating.  By the week of your appointment, you are scared shitless (Ha!  You wish!) and are well entrenched in what I call the 7 Stages of Preparing For Your Colonoscopy, which of course I am going to share with you because, you know, evil gloating.

DENIAL:

“Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.  Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.  Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.  Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.  Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.  Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.”

“Nope.”

ANGER:

“What the heck!  This shit has to stop.”  (Get it?  HAHAHAHAHA)

“Where is that doctor?  I’m going to pop a cap in his ass.  See how he likes it.”

“You mean to tell me, that in this day and age of medical advancement that they haven’t come up with anything better than drinking 10 gallons of freaking laxative? (moments later….)  I’M NEVER, EVER DOING THIS AGAIN!  YOU HEAR ME?  NEVER!”  (insert muttering and additional colorful metaphors I can’t type in because my mother reads my blog).

“I better be losing a crap load of weight!”  (Do you see what I did there?  Hahahahaaa!  I kill me.)

BARGAINING:

“I’m going to flip a coin.  “Heads” means I get to cancel my appointment, okay?  Here we go..(flip)….dang.  Okay, let me try that again, only this time I call “tails”…(flip)…DANG IT.   Okay…2 out of 3…”

“The Bible!  Yes!  Flip it open and point my finger – God will surely tell me “Stay Home!  Eat Cake!” (squints eyes closed…flip, flip, flip, flip…point)  OKAY – WHO WROTE “GET A COLONOSCOPY YOU BIG BABY” ON EVERY PAGE OF MY BIBLE?”

“Isn’t 50 the new 40? That means I have 10 more years before I have to do this, right?”

“MAKE IT STOP!!!  I’LL NEVER EAT CORN AGAIN!  I SWEAR!”

 

DEPRESSION:

“I’m dying.  I know it.  And that big jerk Dave will probably have “Death By Pooping” put on my headstone.”

“So.  Hungry.  Need.  Cake.”

“What if I have to drink more stuff at the doctor?  What if I go thru all this and they can’t do it?  What if the doctor gets distracted and pokes a hole thru my colon?  What if the doctor is really an alien and this is just an alien butt probe experiment? What if the alien doctor is really planting an alien baby and my stomach explodes in 9 months?  What if the alien doctor with the alien butt probe and the alien baby decides I’m really annoying and not worth the effort and just drops me off in some space dump with all the other reject experiments and I have to live the rest of my life intergalactic dumpster diving to survive?  Wait…they would probably just kill me.  Oh great, I’m dead for sure.”

ACCEPTANCE:

“What’s that?  Why are you putting in that IV?  Are you an alien?  Why are you looking at me funny?  What’s in that needle?  I don’t want a butt probe!  I’ll be good, I swea…..aaaaah….dude…that’s like some really sweet stuff, man….hahahaha…I feel awesome….What?  Assume what position? Lie on my side and tuck my legs up?  Sure…you’re the bo…..zzzzzzzzzz…”

RELIEF:

“Am I done?  I’m done right?  Oh sweet Jesus I’m done.”

“What?  You took pictures?  That’s my colon?  Huh.  Didn’t see that one coming.  But whatever – Yay!  I’m done!!”

EVIL GLOATING:

In my case, I have another 10 years before I have to go back, so I will have many opportunities to relate my story to my younger friends as they come up to age 50 and hear those dreaded words from their own doctor.  You can bet I will exaggerate the hell out of it, too.

To sum up, here is an actual screen shot of a text conversation I had with my sister while I was downing laxatives and spending my night in the john.  I have pointed out a few of the classic stages.

 

Have you gotten a colonoscopy?  Was it really an alien abduction?  How many alien babies have you had?  Share your butt pro….colonoscopy story in the comments below!  May the “force” be with you!

Squeaky Clean As A Whistle,
Sue

This post is dedicated to my beautiful friend Carol, who was diagnosed with colon cancer 15 years ago, and was cancer free until January, 2015, when she was diagnosed with a new, aggressive cancer.  She died in April.  Carol was strong and courageous, and met death the same way she met life – with arms wide open.  

Don’t be a wuss.  Get your colonoscopy.

 

 

 

Bell Choir Reject

I don’t know if I told you guys this, but I joined the bell choir at church.  If you are unfamiliar with the term “bell choir”, it’s a choir made up of people ringing hand bells to play a musical score.  Each person has 2-4 bells which they ring when their notes come up in the piece.

Dropping these in the middle of a piece is frowned upon. Do not ask me how I know this.

I can hear you now.  “Sue?  The bell choir?  You do know you can’t use colorful metaphors when you play the wrong notes, right?  What were you thinking?”  It was a weak moment. I was tired and emotional (long story but the majority can be blamed on hormones) when the ring leader approached me (“ring leader”…get it? Hahahahaaaaa! I kill me.) one morning after church. She had an opening in the choir and remembered that I had played a few years ago as a mentor in the confirmation class and thought I would be a good fit.

A lot of factors played into my “yes” answer, besides hormones.  First of all, this was the second time she asked me – the first time being about a year ago and at that time I felt too committed (or maybe just needed TO BE committed.  You know, to the looney bin) to other things so I said no.  Plus I figured this would give her a chance to come to her senses and find someone who might actually know what they were doing.  Apparently, “coming to her senses” wore off after a year.  Or maybe she was desperate.  People will do a lot of unreasonable things when they are desperate.  Like asking nonmusical people to play in the bell choir.  Or accepting said bell choir offer.

Second, I kinda felt it was something God wanted me to do.  This has been a rough year for a lot of reasons (sadly, not all to be blamed on hormones), and my mind likes to play the Circle Game.  This is not a fun game.  It’s exhausting and frustrating and sometimes it makes me cry.  And yet, every time my mind suggests it, I’m all “Sure!  That sounds like fun!  What issue are we going to obsess about nonstop today?  My Life Is Going Nowhere?  Great!  We haven’t done that one since yesterday!”  Playing in the bell choir gave me something to concentrate on that I actually had control over.  Plus God was shoving me (rather firmly) from behind.

And finally – I love being the center of attention.  Shocking, I know.  I have always wished I had a choir appropriate voice. I have spent many a lost youthful hour belting out John Denver and Tony DeFranco songs in my trusty tape recorder, only to play them back in abject horror.

Still, I practice in the car every once in a while, to see if anything has improved. Sadly, it has not.  Dave still cranks up the radio to drown me out and my kids yell, “Oh my God, Mom. Stop.  STOP!  STAAAAHP.”

Playing in the bell choir allows me to live the dream.  I get to say things now like, “I’m sorry, I can’t attend.  I have choir practice.”  “Oh sure, I’ll come over, right after choir practice.”  “I have to be careful with my voice hands.  I’m in the choir, you know.” So now I get to be part of a choir, practice is only once a week and I get to create pretty music with a bunch of really nice (and patient) folks.  Everyone’s a winner.

Except, of course, for anyone listening, because Hello! – I can’t read music. When I played with the confirmation group, she had all of our notes color coded so it wasn’t very difficult for us to follow. When I saw a pink or green highlighted note, I rang my bell. Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeesy.

There is no color coding in the adult bell choir.  No conductor counting the measures out loud and pointing briskly at me when it’s my turn. I have to learn to read music, people.  REAL MUSIC.  And it’s seriously cutting into my obsessing time.  My own kids don’t recognize me.  “Who’s that lady over there humming at the kitchen table?”  “I dunno.  Mom?” “It’s not mom, you dork.  If it was mom, our ears would be bleeding.”  “I’m not a dork.  You’re a dork.” “No, you’re a dork.”  “No, YOU’RE a dork!”  “DORK!” “DOUBLE DORK!!”

So far, I have had about 5 practices and played in 4 services.  And I screwed up in every single one, without a single colorful metaphor escaping my lips.  Now that’s progress, people.  The rest of you will just have to worry about the world going to hell in a handbasket without me.  I’ll be over here, highlighting my notes.

Until next time,

Sue

PS.  Cake was not involved in any of the bell choir practices or services.  I have a note in to management.

 

Weekend Update

Welcome to “Weekend Update” – the portion of my blog where I fill you in on what’s been happening on life details that I may (or may not) have mentioned in past blogs.

100 Pushups – I start week 5 tomorrow.  To be honest, I’m not sure how well I will do.  Tomorrow’s sets are 36, 40, 30, 24, 40.  Seriously?  That’s 170 pushups.  One hundred seventy.  One.  Hundred. Seventy.  Pushups.  And I have not grown any fonder of them.

SAD Light – I ordered my SAD light (SAD stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder – basically, you get depressed in the winter due to lack of light) and it came last Tuesday.  First of all, I have to say I paid a lot of money for something that looks and feels like it should cost ten bucks.  Then, not all of the lights worked – about 6 of them did not light.  Oh joy.  My skepticism and annoyance just multiplied by a billion.

Perhaps what I really need is actual sun on an actual beach for an undetermined length of time. Like 3 months.

However, because I did NOT want to package it back up, trudge to the post office, ship it back and then pray I got my money back, I decided to try it, regardless of the 6 dark LED’s.  I have used it for 30 minutes every morning since and the first three days (W-TH-F) I felt more awake and had continued energy at night after work.  However, I did not work out two of those three days because work was hair-curling crazy, so that may have influenced my evening energy.  On Saturday, I was talking about it with my sister, who said the energy increase was probably psychosomatic, something I kind of wondered about myself.  After which, I suddenly felt exhausted and promptly went home and took a nap.

So the jury is still out on the light.  I have read that it can take a few weeks to fully kick in, so I will keep using it.  I certainly don’t mind trying as it requires no real effort on my part, and I’m just drinking coffee and browsing the internet anyway in the morning.  Oh, and ironically, the 6 LED’s are now working.

Oh yes, I did just go there.

Y-M-C-A! – Sing it with me!  I joined on Thursday after work.  Haven’t gone yet and frankly I am a little stressed about trying to figure out when I will have time to go.  I am also stressed about putting on a bathing suit in front of strangers – something I don’t mind when I am at the beach because of all the weirdos at the beach anyway – I blend right in.  At the Y, I will be donning my suit with Michael Phelps Wanna-bes in goggles and speedos, pretending I know how to swim well enough to claim a lane in the cut throat world of 5am swimmers.

I am also going to try the spin classes.  A couple of the gals from the bike club also belong to the Y, so we are planning on meeting there to take them together.  And, heaven help me, I am probably going to start running on the indoor track.  Not that running in a circle and counting laps is what I want to do, but it’s slightly less boring than running on a treadmill.

Do not bathe us! We like smelling like corn chips!

A Clean Dog is Not a Happy Dog – However, a clean dog makes for a happy owner, especially when said dog sleeps right next to said owner’s face.  I noticed an increase in the corn chipiness of the air when one of them was next to me, and decided that November 19th, the day of their next grooming, was much to far away for my survival.  They now smell like soap and doggy perfume, which I am sure they hate with the heat of a 1000 burning suns, and that they are quietly plotting revenge.  The ‘revenge’ will likely show up in the hallway when I get up in the morning.  They are masters of the well placed doggie tootsie roll.  (This would be one of those “updates” that really have nothing to do with any past blog entries.  It’s pretty much just shameless yorkie poo promotion.  Or anti-promotion, as the case may be.)

And that, my friends, is that.  Time for bed and a new work week tomorrow. Hopefully, it will contain fewer moments of hair tearing than last week!

Sue