Sedated, violated, and worries abated
AUGUST is my time of year for catching up on any outstanding medical issues. Luckily I don’t have many, but there was one thing that has been niggling at me for a while, so I bit the bullet last week, let them drug me up, turned on my side in a vague daze, and let them violate me. Those of you with sensitive stomachs should perhaps not read on. Or then again, maybe you should, because, in a way, this is all about sensitive stomachs.
About four years ago, I joined the club that dare not speak its name and succumbed to my first colonoscopy. The findings at the time were slightly alarming, in that there was a bit of removing of things, and the word “pre-cancerous” was used. Pre-cancerous is not as bad as it sounds, apparently. As I freaked out at the time, the doc assured me that it just meant I was very lucky I had come to him. But still, anything with the word cancer in it, even with the qualifications “pre” and “ous”, sends a cold shiver down the spine. He told me I was a bit young to have anything needing removing, so he said to come back in two years for another look.
So obviously I put it off for longer, putting it out of my head apart from the odd late night/early morning, when I lay there thinking about how they would say: “He was told to go back, but he put it out of his head, because he didn’t want to know. And when he finally went in, they told him he was a goner.” Because that’s how it goes apparently. Someone had helpfully told me after the original violation that you could have no symptoms whatsoever, and it would be too late when you did notice anything. And you could be coming in to be told you were brown bread. And guess what? I HAD NO SYMPTOMS!
So after a bit of nagging at home I made the appointment. For those of you who know how these things work, you will know that I had other reasons for avoiding it too. For the rest of you innocents, if I tell you that the violation itself is the least unpleasant part of it, that might give you some picture of the general wretchedness. The purgeatory starts at breakfast time the previous day, when you have your last meal. Admittedly I had a few last suppers. I uncharacteristically stuffed myself in a casual Japanese restaurant the night before. We were passing it on the way home and I just thought, ‘I’ve always been meaning to go in here’. So I did. While I still could, I guess. But the breakfast was the actual last supper. The eating of white bread is encouraged at this meal, so I stuffed myself with white toast and eggs. The rest of the day was to be clear liquid only. I was planning a civilised day, a bit of consomme for lunch, and maybe some bone broth for my tea. But then again, I work on Talbot Street, so consomme and bone broth were in short supply. I ate nothing all day and was an antichrist. I wouldn’t be any good on a hunger strike, I’ll tell you that. On the way home I got some spicy noodle soup from M&S and strained it. Luckily my wife had found one pouch of bone broth at this point. It’s like vaguely flavoured water, but it seemed to stop me from passing out.
And then you take the preparation, a kind of selfadministered enema the details of which I will spare you. Then you sleep a fitful, poisoned kind of sleep. Early the next morning, you go in. The nurses and everyone involved, clearly wise to the fact that this is a low point for you, are really nice. And then you turn on your side and lower your garments, like The Ceremony from The Handmaid’s Tale, and the doc sedates and violates. More white toast and tea then: As everyone who has ever had any procedure knows, the greatest meal a man will ever eat.
And then the verdict. I had a good feeling because they told me he hadn’t taken anything out. But I needed to hear it from the man himself. In he came, somehow able to look me in the eye, even after having just, well, looked me in the eye. And it was good news. All clear. Don’t need to go back for five years, which, given my engagement with these things, I will be taking as 10 years. I walked out of there considerably lighter, in more ways than one, my only job now being to find something else to worry about. One of the nurses did mention that my blood pressure was high, so I think I’ll obsess about that for a while now while doing nothing about it. Until next August.
‘I ate nothing all day. I was an antichrist. I wouldn’t be good on hunger strike’