Today's friend duty was to drive to Beverly Hills and pick up a friend at a medical building who had a colonoscopy, and bring her home. Generally speaking, any exam that requires the insertion of any instrument into any intimate orifice is at best uncomfortable, at worst, humiliating. So, in solidarity with said friend, I give you...
The unedited, no holds barred, completely disgusting, ohmygod I can't believe you'd write about this in such detail you have clearly lost all sense of decency, retelling of my sigmoidoscopy procedure back at UCLA, during law school. That is to say, this is a TMI ALERT. If you think you might be uncomfortable about me talking in detail about my poopshoot, this is a good time to avert your eyes. Seriously. If you don't, and then you're all, oh that was waaay too much information, you know what my answer to that will be? Tough shit, asshole (scatological references intended), I warned you. And that goes double if your morbid curiosity has you read on and then you complain.
Here we go. (Last chance to leave, for real.)
While in law school, at one point I suffered from some buttular irritation. Such irritation manifested itself not in pain or discomfort, but as a tiny bit of blood that I would notice when wiping. After a few weeks, I figured I should probably get this little anomaly checked out. Off I went to my PCP (primary care physician), stuck my butt in the air (oh yes, it's even worse than a pap smear) and was told there was no visible sign of hemorrhoids. Now hemorrhoids, other than just tricky to spell, can be external or internal. This means that either you've got this bulbous fleshy, angry-looking thing sticking out of Uranus, or it is a shy thing that hides inside your butt, in the general rectal area. When the angry red monster is internal, it is best to double check to make sure it's not polips, which are often the precursor to colon cancer. What's a little humiliation compared to denial about colon cancer? Nothing.
So the doctor refers me to an assiologist, who books me for this procedure, the sigmoidoscopy. This is a mini-colonoscopy. They look up your butt, but not as far, so you get to be awake and watch the whole thing in technicolor on a monitor. Oh, goodie.
Before you get this procedure, you have to "evacuate the bowels." This is achieved through two (TWO!) enemas. I don't know if you've ever had an enema, but what I had to do was squirt warm water with some medicine up my patootie, then wait on the ground on my knees and elbows so as to keep my butt in the air and not be completely overcome by gravity, and wait for 20 minutes. And then have at it. Did I mention I had to do this twice? Well, I did. Twice. That means, 20 minutes on my knees and elbows and then the lovely (and explosive) end result, and then another 20 minutes on my elbows, and another end result. I assure you that those 20 minutes are quite painful as you resist the urge to get to the end result.
I did my thing, because I'm a good little patient, and I did it twice, because I may not have mentioned that I was instructed to do it twice, and then trotted off to UCLA Medical Center.
They put me in one of those sexy hospital gowns, which (you guessed it!) opened up in the back, and then on a little hospital bed with wheels and those side rails like you're a bowling ball and will fall off. Does anyone actually fall off those? They must. They left me there, behind my little privacy curtain. I'm not sure if they were aware of this, but I could still hear the moaning from the other beds, and it did not help. Thankfully, they came to get me soon enough and wheeled me to the procedure room. I don't understand why they don't just let you walk there, I mean, I wasn't anesthetized or drugged in any way, and really, if I was just gonna run away, do you think the little rails on the bed would stop me? I think not. But whatever.
The procedure room was maybe 15' by 12', tops. The bed and the tv monitor took up a good bit of the available space, which will become significant shortly.
The procedure itself is fairly quick. They stick a tube or two up your bee-hind, one of which has a light and a camera connected to a monitor (thankfully, no HD yet!), and the other a hose that blows air into your very low intestine. So here I am, lying on my side, and a young, attractive doctor reaches under the modesty (hah!) blanket and unceremoniously lubes me up in the back. It might surprise you to know that at this point I blushed. Oh yes, even I sometimes blush.
I mention UCLA because it is a teaching hospital. TEACHING. That means students. That means, about 7 people in the room with me while all this is going on, and I'm not even sedated for the love of Jesus Christ and all the saints. Since the room was not very large, all these people were pressed up around the bed and leaning into the railings, alternatively watching the doctor fiddle with my ass and watching said ass on the monitor, making the whole idea of a modesty sheet all the more ridiculous.
Next, up go the tubes and WHOOOSH in goes the air. For anyone who's ever had the experience of really needing to fart in the worst way but not being able to because of, say, being in a room with a judge or a guy/gal you're trying to impress -- imagine that uncomfortable, painful, how quickly can I get outside so I can fart loudly as a bus is driving by sensation, and multiply it by about 10. That's how it feels.
But then the doctor says, "Hold it in as much as you can. If you hold it, we don't have to do the WHOOOSH thing again." So here I am, holding it in cos I'll die before letting them blow air up my ass again. At least literally, I'm sure I get that metaphorically all the time, but it doesn't hurt so I don't care as much. The nurse, super helpful, says to me, "Oh let me wheel the monitor around so you can see!" And I'm all, "No, really, it's ok," but she wheels it around and oh dear god it's like when you drive by a car accident and the people are on fire and running down the street screaming: I could not look away and was too freaked out to call 9-1-1.
About 15 seconds in the doctor says to me (and the whole room) that I did not do the enema correctly and there is stool still in the colon so he's not sure if he'll be able to see enough. I'm (1) thinking that well, it's the poopshoot, there is poop, this should hardly come as a surprise to you, DOCTOR, and (2) trying to figure out the implications for me as a human being of failing Enema. I mean, there is no shame in failing Organic Chemistry, or Quantum Mechanics, but Enema? I'm making it through law school and I fail Enema? I can just imagine the conversation after: "Well, youngsters, you will encounter bad and disgusting patients in your career, who don't evacuate their bowels adequately and then you will have to look at their poop." And they all go, "Eeeewwww!" just like high school girls, and then talk about how they should just send patients home who don't shit properly. Needless to say, I am uncertain how to respond to this rebuke, and just sit there trying to look nonchalant while I'm red with shame. I mean, really, what does one say?
Fortunately the failed enema is only a minor hitch in the giddyup, and the doctor forges on. The colon looks fine, it was just a minor hemorrhoid, nothing to worry about. Except, of course, that I want the earth to open and swallow me whole. I swore I would never ever tell anyone of my total humiliation. Eh-hem. But then, I didn't have a blog, so...
Within a few minutes the procedure is over, the tubes are removed, and the doctor says, "Ok, you can let it out now." I say "Let what out now?" As if I didn't know, but hey, I failed Enema, remember? He might actually believe that I'm stupid enough not to know what he's talking about. "You can let the air out now." And I say, "You mean the air you blew up my butt?" "Yes, that air." "Ok, can you please leave the room?" He blinks and stares at me uncomprehendingly, then it dawns on him I might not want to fart loudly in front of him and all his proteges. In his best bedside manner, which is not that good by the way, this is the man whose first words to me were that I had not done the enema properly, he waves his hand in the air and says "Oh don't worry, we do these all the time, it's no problem." And I'm all, "Yeah, but this is my first one, if you don't mind."
Turns out he does mind, he simply ignores me and continues to discuss the procedure with his students, while I finally surrender to THE FART, which comes out long, and loud, and raucous, and animal, but then winds down with a high-pitched and warbly squeak like when you let the air slowly out of a balloon. Aww-kwaard! I think THE FART was a bit more than they actually expected because the conversation ceases until the squeak fades to silence and then the doctors continue talking as if nothing happened. Meanwhile, I am the uninterestingly hemorrhoidal patient who failed Enema and whose FART derailed their train of thought.
It's a damn good thing I have a sense of humor.
