Wednesday, April 21, 2010
A doctor, a kindly looking, but confused man, came into my curtained bed space and picked up the clipboard lying across my legs. He wasn’t my doctor and I knew that, but I was curious what he was going to do – so I didn’t say anything. I was waiting to be taken into the operating room where I’d go through my third colonoscopy with the guy who was my doctor. I liked them…so I keep coming back.
He read all the documents…looked at me…leaned outside the curtain and into the next space…leaned back in and looked me over again…and set the clipboard down. He smiled and walked away.
A moment later, a nurse came in, picked up my chart, read my name…and said “you’re Mr. Rolf?”
“Yes I am.”
“Hmm. I lost my patient and you’re not him.”
“Did someone run? Afraid of a little camera up their kiester?”
“I…um…maybe…” she replied and turned to leave.
My confidence in the clinic was flagging. Ah well. I checked my resting heart rate for something to do. I was skipping about every other beat – I’ve skipped beats my whole life and the docs tell me it’s cool…but now I was around 28 beats a minute and figured I might freak out this particular doc. My nurse came through the curtain to tell me all about the unpleasantness I was about to experience, so I told her about the heart rate.
“Oh…that’s kind of weird,” she said.
“Yeah…you want weird…read my blog.”
She must have reported to the doc because when they wheeled me into ‘the room’ the nurse hooking me up to the sleeping juice said they were going to give me a lighter dose. She took my glasses and started to put them under my pillow.
“Can’t I keep them for when I wake up so I can watch the screen?”
“You won’t be waking up,” she said.
Famous last words.
“Owww…that…hurts. Oh…I’m awake. Can I…ahhhh…owww…have my glasses? I want to watch if…I’m…ahhh.”
“He’s awake, doctor.”
“Why don’t you give him his glasses then.”
The nurse handed me my glasses and I slipped them on. I was kind of out of it. I suppose they gave me enough juice to keep me sleeping if they weren’t doing anything too painful, but once that garden hose snaked up my butt and into my colon and they started pumping air into me like I was an air mattress, well, that woke me up. Completely.
“Oh…wow…look at my colon! It’s, it’s empty,” I said.
“Yes it is. You did a good job. It’s very clear, too. No polyps,” the doctor said.
“Yeah…that drink was good. I shit my brains out,” I said – uninhibited by way of chemicals, “and I’m going to write all about this in my blog.”
We chatted some more about the inside of my colon, my blog and how I planned to run after he pulled the hose out. I told Holly all about how I was awake during the procedure later in the recovery room and how I’d shared my blog with them.
“Oh…I’m sure they’ll be reading it now,” she said.
Turns out I didn’t go for that run. I was feeling a little gaseous, but afraid something else might come out if I ran. Instead, I walked up to the school to see Jack’s track meet. Jimmy was there and so I shared the experience with him. He couldn’t figure out why they left all the oxygen in me, figuring they’d push down on my stomach until it all squirted out my butt.
“You were sedated, right? They could have squished it out and you wouldn’t be passing gas now,” he said.
“I was awake…remember? And I’m not a balloon. You don’t let it out – it comes out when it wants to…like right now…”
He stopped bugging me after that.
Colonoscopy duration: Around 30 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 28
Calories burned: Not sure – but I lost 5 pounds.
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