Holy Colonoscopy

 

Having therefore these promises,

dearly beloved,

let us cleanse ourselves

from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,

perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

                                                                                    — 2 Corinthians 7:1

 

 

I got a head start on my spring cleaning the other day. Fresh as a daisy! Clean as a whistle! Not my house: me! Even though I was a little afraid, I now know that I'm much better off . . . IN THE END!!!

 

Ah, yes. You guessed it. Colonoscopy: the seat of all humor, the butt of many jokes. Even though we know that one out of 17 people will be diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer, and so the procedure is an extremely serious preventative health tool, it's still an awkward and funny experience.

 

Like visiting Paris and rafting the Amazon, having a colonoscopy was one of those life experiences I hadn't yet had. Somehow, I wasn't mourning that fact.

 

However, my Beloved thought otherwise. He is my brave, stalwart champion, my risk-taking hero. Whenever anything is the least bit scary or difficult, HE does it first. If he lives, then I do it. So, many years ago, in full, manly, leadership mode, he scheduled a colonoscopy for himself.

 

He put on his shining armor and rode his nimble SUV to Walgreen's to pick up the colonoscopy "prep" (what an awful word!).

 

But he couldn't drink it down. It made him horribly sick! He stayed home, whimpering and shuddering. I was, in vicarious sympathy, 10 times more intimidated than before.

 

Months later, though, he tried again. They prescribed a much more reasonable "prep." I drove him in to the doctor's office, and he was back out within two hours, a little goofy, but fine. I drove him home and he went straight to bed. He made it seem slightly more do-able.

 

But when he woke up, he started laughing, and kept laughing. He made me laugh, too, so hard, that I didn't think I could ever, EVER go through with it.

 

You see, he reported, when you are in the "ready chute" in your little patient gown all "prepped" and about to be wheeled in next for the colonoscopy, but . . . and this is key . . . BEFORE the sedative takes hold, you can SEE things. Things like long, clear tubes with you-don't-want-to-know-what running inside, leading to containers you-don't-want-to-know-where.

 

Ewwwwww!

 

And you can HEAR everything that's going on: lots and lots of the type of loud, juicy noises that get fourth-grade boys sent to the principal's office. But NOBODY'S LAUGHING!!!

 

You hear the nurses and doctors nonchalantly visiting about everything else BUT the noises: movies and what they had for lunch . . . right in the midst of the clamor . . . without a chuckle or giggle to be heard. IT WAS SURREAL!!!

 

Now, I have a lifelong disability: if I get started laughing, I cannot stop. I knew it would be very, very bad if I got the giggles in that situation. We're talking untended firehose!!! Ewwwww!!!! So I skillfully avoided making my appointment, for years, for fear of an "incident."

 

Our daughter Maddy also made me feel ill at ease. She is 9 and a real health expert. "Oh, yes, the human colon," the mini-professor lectured, pushing her aqua fairy glasses higher on her nose. "It is extremely coiled up inside your body. If it were stretched out, it would go all the way around the Earth at the equator."

 

My eyebrows shot sky-high! Whoa!

 

So when I finally called, reluctantly, kicking and screaming, to make the long-overdue appointment, I asked about that equator business. Turns out the colon would "only" stretch out about 30 feet. I imagined it on my driveway, about the length of my garden hose.

 

My GARDEN hose?!?!?!?

 

And they're going to put a CAMERA into my BODY peeking up my COLON as long as my GARDEN HOSE?!?!?

 

WHY did I NOT feel BETTER? Even though it WASN'T the danged EQUATOR?!?

 

But we must push on. Like an IRS audit, this was going to be invasive and uncomfortably up close and personal, but had to be done. Grudgingly, I prepared to fast for a day and a half, and picked up the stuff you have to drink the night before, called "MoviPrep." It sounded kind of fun, like going to a movie with some cute prep school boys. But it came in a big, imposing box the size of a blender.

 

Ominous.

 

Maddy got a load of the name and started to sing and dance a truly ridiculous scene from one of her favorite animated movies, "Madagascar," in which a giant hippo sings, "You've got to move it, move it!"

 

Ominous, indeed.

 

She reminded me of what the big screen always says at University of Nebraska at Omaha hockey games to whip the crowd into a frenzy of cheering, right before the third and final period:

 

UNLEASH THE FURY!!!!!!!!

 

Ewwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!

 

But, summoning all my courage, I mixed it up and drank it down, wincing spectacularly. It tasted like orangutan effluent, with a twist of lemon. And there was a 55-gallon barrel drum of it, seems like.

 

For an hour, nothing happened.

 

Then I started to feel what my nephew Chris not-so-delicately calls "A RUMBLE IN THE BRONX."

 

Let's just say the "prep" was, in an enormous understatement, effective. The fury was definitely unleashed.

 

Now let's fast-forward to the actual . . . procedure.

 

So there I was, in the fetal position with my hind end hanging out. Not good.

 

I saw what looked like a set of long, rubber pool cues, displayed in length gradations, on the wall. Not good at ALL, considering I was the one behind the 8-ball.

 

I swear, the song on the elevator music was from the 1970s: "Up, Up and Awayyyyyy."

 

The doctor introduced himself. His name made my mind spring to the most obscure recesses of deepest, darkest Africa. "Dr. Livingston, I presume?" I ventured, attempting a weak joke. He smiled patiently, with pity, and said he heard "that one" almost every day.

 

Immediately, the sedative kicked in. When I woke up, it was over. I had no memory of the procedure whatsoever. Nothing gross, hilarious, or in any way emotionally hard-to-take. My whazoo checked out A-OK, and I didn't have to come back for 10 years.

 

And best of all:

 

I FELT FANTASTIC!

 

Now I'm a big fan of colon cleansing. You don't have to go to a doctor or go through the entire colonoscopy routine. You can fast a little, and mix up your own "recipe" and do it at home, once in a while. It must be great for your digestive system, to give it a little rest and a little cleansing. Best of all, you can crack jokes to your heart's content; the possibilities are, well . . . END-less.

 

A "cleansing" is going to be part of my spring cleaning regimen from now on. To "prep" myself, I'm going to watch this little video:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI1go72c5H8

 

There's a lot of spiritual benefit to it, too. After all, cleanliness IS next to Godliness. God loves for us to feel good and be clean. There's really nothing to it. Most of all, taking care of ourselves is following His orders, if you want to know the . . . excuse the expression . . . bottom line. †