Bringing up the rear

"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live."

—Jim Rohn

I can smile after under going a medical procedure that makes everybody squirm.

LEWISTON, Maine —When you turn 50, your concerned, family doctor taps you on the shoulder and says: "It is time to get this done."

You might react like Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver" and shout: "Are you talkin' to me!" You could go off the deep end, pull an Anthony Soprano and scream: "Forget you!"

But deep down, you know your doctor's wisdom and expertise in the medical field are unquestionable. You pause for a moment and tell the good doc you will schedule an appointment in the near future.

The hell you will! 

You will procrastinate and find any excuse to avoid having a colonoscopy. 

Here is what you are really thinking behind a masked smile as this moment of cooperation with your physician disappears.

Hey doc, I refuse to wear a johnny and spend the next 24 hours reading "War and Peace" in the bathroom after drinking a gallon of bilge water that will keep me running to the head and cursing my existence.

I waited four years before I reluctantly gave the green light to undergo a colonoscopy — a pain-in-the-ass procedure that saves lives. 

Of course, people, who have undergone the procedure, giggle when they learn it's your turn on the table. They remind you that your colon will be on parade in front of a handful of medical personnel in a cold operating room.

Then comes a cavalcade of jokes about your exposed derriere and the crap you must drink that strips away your insides like the Rotor Rooter man does to your home's pipes with an iron snake.

I made the appointment two weeks ago.

Preparation begins five days before your insides go on display. You stop eating certain kinds of foods before you get to that day — a day that lives in infamy.

When you begin gulping the stuff, there are moments when you wish you weren't born. The liquid is flavored, but I think a mixture of gin and Vodka might have made this medicine palatable. 

Beginning at midnight on the day before ground zero, you can't eat. You are allowed to suck on Popsicles, sip chicken broth (yum) or drink Gatorade. By the time you force yourself to drink the medicine, you want to eat your table. The hunger pangs are so intense that I wanted kill the ground hog eating my garden and have it for dinner.

Before ingesting an entire gallon of medicine, you must imbibe a 10-ounce bottle of magnesium citrate. You might be fooled that 10 ounces of this effervescent mix sounds refreshing — that's what the label says, anyway. After a few gulps, you start thinking of the word "vomit." It takes an hour to get this down. 

Trust me on this one.

Around 7 p.m., you are required to consume a half gallon of medicine. In no time at all, the stuff kicks in and you become intimate with your bathroom. Fortunately, we have two toilets in the house. You should be finished with it at around 9 p.m. At 3 a.m., Round 2 begins. You arise out of your stupor with an empty stomach and go to work polishing off the rest of medicine. 

The obscenities grow louder with each gulp.

You visit the bathroom in your home at least several times before you think it is safe to head to the hospital without attaching a Porta Potty to your car.

Check-in time is 7 a.m. You wait until you are summoned to the pre-op room where several nurses hand you a Johnny and stick things in your arm while trying to make you comfortable, which will never happen.

The cheerful anesthesia guy visits and explains these wonderful drugs will lull you into a deep sleep while your colon in on a lift undergoing an inspection.

You don't want to be conscious for this procedure. Take the drugs while the good doctor goes about his business examining your colon on the Silver Screen.

While laying on the table dreaming of a roast-beef sandwich and a tall, sudsy beverage, the medical staff inflates your stomach like a rubber tube inside a bicycle tire. Your ballooning abdomen allows the doctor to observe your colon without the rest of your organs getting in the way of his line of vision. When you awake, your guts are pressurized. I will spare readers the grisly details what happens as you recover in a bloated, wonderful haze.

The entire procedure takes about two hours. Those wonderful drugs wear off quick and you spend the  afternoon sleeping it off like some drunk in Central Park.

Was it worth feeling like the Goodyear blimp for an hour and drinking medicine that could wear down an elephant?

Absolutely!

My doctor, who was quite thorough, was impressed at how serious I took the preparation and gave my colon a clean bill of heath. I told him the medicine tasted like crap. He shook his head and agreed with me.

There was a 50-50 chance the doctor might have discovered a cancerous polyp, which could be removed on the spot.

The decision to undergo a colonoscopy is a no-brainer unless you enjoy playing Russian roulette with your health.

In a way, I feel like a new man, lighter on my feet and can boast that I have the cleanest colon this side of the Mississippi.