Jose can you see my colon?

And we have another entry  from the "It Could Only Happen to Karen" stories that I think may be blog worthy.

 Readers should judge that.  I don't want to tell you my blog is funny or must read or anything else that you should be deciding on your own.  'Cause I'd rather not write anything than be  labeled a BUB. 

 (Brutally Untalented Blogger, for those who missed the acronym in my travel journal)

I am 62, which means..after living in denial for eight years, it was time to reschedule the dreaded colonoscopy.  These days, they're combined with an endoscopy(with two different scopes, one would hope) or as my nurse friend Betty from the River Cruise called it, "from gum to bum."

And I was dreading it.  Being the crazy hypochondriac that I am, I was POSITIVE my occasional stomach spasms and cramping could only mean the worst.  I imagined being yelled out, "why did you wait so long?" and answering"Because 'Im only comfortable living in denial!"

But nothing bad happened today.

Hilarious things happened, but nothing bad.

First of all, I felt guilty hogging the downstairs toilet last night--election night--knowing Jim and Evan needed a place to vomit if the Senate had gone the way it  eventually did.  

Don't let anyone tell you the prep is OK..the prep is torture.  Imagine drinking 16 ounces of motor oil, followed by 32 ounces of water that had to be consumed in a timely fashion.  Imagine all you ate all day was a half cup of slimy jello, a half cup of slimier soup, and an Italian Ice, all which made you feel like you were ALREADY having the procedure.

So after spending the night wedded to the commode, I woke up today filled with dread and anxiety.  Jim parked a little too close to a red neck who complained that I dinged his car, "multiple times."  I could only see the headline:   "Terrified colonoscopy patient gunned down by a  crazy motorist  moments before her fatal disease was to be diagnosed."

Step two:  The anesthesiologist talked about my terrible veins  (As 'though I'm not body shamed enough...) 

  I'm afraid I'm going to have to go through all of this again because he couldn't see my thin blue lines..that..or I'd be awake through the whole scary procedure.

So he says:  "Look away..I can't get a vein so I'm going to jam it in your hand and it's going ti hurt!"

(Things were started to look preferable regarding the psycho with the multiple dinged door)

Then I hear this from a nurse:  "You are NOT supposed to give the patient a shot in this room..the doctor is going to be furious with you!"

.".and with me, I thought, and my wide awake veins, and my disposable shorts that were cutting into my circulation".

But within minutes, I'm on a bed, and on my side, and I'm scoped, and I'm saying "I'm still awake..I'm still awake..I'm still..."

And just like that, it is over and  I am fine.  And sitting in a room with water and a cookie, both of which I decline.

The doctor then says, "Call Mr. Amster into my office so we can discuss the results of his wife's test."

We're both nervous, and Jim asks, before the doctor could say  anything at all, "did she do the test right?" and he replies"she had a gorgeous colon."

(So let me brag about something..OK?  My gorgeous colon)

Then he says, "I will be back in no more than five minutes..Try to relax"

Easy for him to say as five minutes turned into ten, and ten into fifteen..

If there was anything left in me to poop I'd be doing just that, I was so scared..

So then Jim gets an idea:  He says, "look..the report is right on his desk..Let's just read it.."

So I watch the door knob as Jim peruses the report.

"I don't think it's cancer," he says, "but it looks like you have something called irritable bowel syndrome."

He googles the symptoms:  irritation(um..check!) depression..(um..when a Woodloch trip doesn't pan out)  diarrhea..constipation(TMI)..low libido(diito) ..yes, I had polyps and IBS, and after 35 minutes, we both were experts on IBS and all it's symptoms.

Except we were reading the report of a Hispanic man named Jose Reyes who was born in 1948.

Jose, can you..contact us?  We can tell you more than the doctor can.

Forty-five minutes later, the doctor comes in, all apologetic, and tells us to excuse him, "because I didn't think I'd be in someone's dirty colon for that long."

You don't say something like that to a couple with the combined maturity of an average four year old, but we were able to regain some composure.  And ask about Purell.

We then get to the bottom line..(pun intended)

I am fine.  He tied to sell me GI meds that seem to come from some kind of Columbian drug lord and he tried to fat shame me, but just a little,

... 'cause he failed at both.

So I will return in seven years with an even cleaner colon, and hopefully, a different White House. And maybe milder gastritis.

And if I'm lucky, a parking space where there are no sociopaths complaining about a door ding that nobody but the sociopath actually was aware of.