The Big Day

Today I have my colonoscopy. In about 6 hours, I will be home eating something. Anything.

Since my appointment is at 1:30, I haven't been able to eat or drink since midnight. I have a terrible headache, and have been using an ice pack. I would kill for green jello.

I have decided that the colonoscopy prep is like childbirth. The first time you decide to do it, you are a little nervous because you've heard bad things, but you know people do it all the time and you get something good from it. During the actual prep/labor, you wonder what in the hell you were thinking and why didn't anyone tell you it was this bad? You cry, promise to eat fiber/use birth control and never ever to do this again.

Then you forget. And the time comes to do it again, and you only remember the good feelings of knowing you don't have cancer/having a baby. You sign up with enthusiasm. You share war stories with others who have done it, but in the jocular way of very old soldiers who spent the war in supply huts & wine bars far from a real battle.

Then it starts for real. And you remember that it really really sucks. You remember that it is banned by the Geneva convention. You promise to eat fiber/use birth control and never ever go near a doctor or a man again.

But then it's over and you have a clean bill of health or a new baby, and you think, that wasn't so bad, was it?