Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader may go a little off brand here. He is going to drop the 3rd person, and he is going to go graphic. If you don’t want to read about a recent “procedure” performed on your Maximum Leader’s person today you may want to skip this post…

You were warned…

So, like men men of a certain age, I had a colonoscopy today. It was my second actually. My first was 5 years ago. As I write this I am a little light-headed now because the general anesthetic is still wearing off. Honestly I don’t know if my being tired was just the anesthesia wearing off, or the fact that I was just really tired because I didn’t sleep well (or hardly at all - more to come).

If you haven’t had a colonoscopy, the actual “procedure” isn’t bad. It isn’t bad because you are knocked out at have no memory of it. It is the colonoscopy prep that is misery. In fact, it is the worst part of the whole ordeal. I don’t know, dear reader, if you have had a colonoscopy yet. If you haven’t, you should if you have turned 50. (NB: If there is a history of colon polyps or colon cancer in your family you need to take the age of your closest relative when the polyps/cancer was discovered and subtract 18 years and get your first colonoscopy then.) As I have stated, the prep is awful. I will say that I did better this time than five years ago, but it is not fun on the ole hiney-hole.

Let’s get gruesome in our description now shall we?

The preparation began 5 days ago when I stopped eating raw veggies and all leafy veggies. 3 days ago I stopped eating any veggies or fruits that contained any small seed or pits (including those little pips on strawberries - whatever they are called). (NB: Google tells me that those little “pips” as I called them are actually achenes. Achenes are the ovaries of the plant with a tiny seed within. Who knew?) After dinner on Monday it was all clear liquids for me until after the procedure.

So, on Tuesday it was all tea, apple juice, and water for me until about 4 pm. At 4 pm yesterday afternoon, I drank 10 ounces of a really nasty (cherry flavored) stool softener. Specifically, the stuff was magnesium citrate. Then I waited. The process began at 5 pm when I had a really big nasty slimy shit. At 6 pm I started the “poop juice” as I call it. I should look up what it actually is called. Glaxflow. Glaflix. Gla-something. (NB: It is actually Gavilyte.) I got a 4 litre bottle of the stuff and had to drink 3 litres of it in three hours. You are supposed to drink roughly equal measures of the stuff every 10 minutes until you have consumed the 3 litres. As I said, I started drinking the infernal liquid at 6 pm. Sure enough, within thirty minutes the jet-like evacuation from my bottom of contents of my digestive tract had begun. The worst part of this phase of the prep is that every time you think to yourself, “Self, this is just a wee tiny fart” it is actually about a cup of fecal-infused liquid shooting out of your asshole at about 60 mph. Needless to say you spend a lot of time on the throne waiting for little visitors that don’t feel all that little.

Unlike my last procedure (when I thought I could “tough it out - I was wrong by the way), I was prepared this time to care for my bum. I was equipped with warm, sensitive skin, baby wipes to clean up. Those help a lot, but by about 10 pm your anus has pretty much had enough and is a raw, swollen, painful mess and the only thing coming out of you at this point is yellow-tinged liquid. The flow stopped around 11:30 pm. But then one is worried about going to sleep and shitting the bed because you fear that your body thinks you need to fart, but in reality your farts are really blasts of poop juice yearning to be free. I didn’t get to sleep until a little after midnight. I slept fitfully until my alarm went off at 4 am. Why 4 am you ask? Well… If you recall, I was given 4 litres of poop juice to consume, but only consumed 3. You have to finish that last litre three hours before you check in for your procedure. My check in this morning was 7 am. So there I was a few minutes after 4 am, in the kitchen, drinking the last of the vile stuff. You would think that there wouldn’t be anything left in you after 5 hours of shitting out the contents of your digestive tract that had just ended a few hours before. But you’d be wrong. Some odd small fibers came out right away. And then the piece de resistance came at 5 am this morning, in the midst of all the clear fluid there was one lone piece of crap. It was slightly larger than a piece of corn. And it was a smooth sphere. It was like a perfectly manufactured ball of fetid chocolate that somehow survived the first wave only to succumb to the follow-up assault. I admit I was shocked to see it there. But that was the last bit of anything inside me. I was perfectly clean after that. (The doctor told me so.)

So I went to the surgery center and checked in (with Mrs. Villain there to bring me home). They took me back and got me ready. They had trouble finding a vein for the IV. It took 2 nurses three tries before they got me. I have my mother to thank for that. She had “slippery veins” and getting an IV in her was a miserable ordeal. I wouldn’t say it was misery for me, but it was uncomfortable until they got it in.

After they got me all prepped, I sat around until it was my turn. Once it was my turn, I got wheeled in and then knocked out. Oh yes. Knocked out with the sweet, sweet propofol. I joked with the anesthesiologist during the pre-op process that I was looking forward to the “Michael Jackson milk.” Sadly, the anesthesiologist didn’t think this was nearly as funny as I did. (NB: During my last “procedure” I knew the anesthesiologist, we are friends socially. I made this joke to him and he went with it. The “milk” jokes flew for a few minutes. It was great. This time, I was semi-scolded and advised that there would be no funny stuff with the propofol.) I woke up a bit later (probably about 30 minutes later) and had some fruit juice and crackers. Then I got dressed and came home. Upon return to the Villainschloss, I went to bed and to sleep for about 90 minutes. After my nap, I have been up and around, but still a little light-headed from time to time. I attribute this to needing real food more than anything else.

In the aftermath, it looks like this will be an every five year thing for me. All was well. 2 small polyps were removed. I should have biopsy results in about 10 days. My doctor said they didn’t look bad. Last time he removed 3 polyps that were all a bit bigger. I’ll keep getting checked to make sure no polyp grows up in my colon.

Fun times…

Thanks for reading, if you are still reading… And do get yourself checked out if you haven’t been. Colon cancer is lethal and also easily preventable with regular checks.

Carry on.