DRINKING THE ANTIFREEZE
Since the Jim Jones cult’s bungle in the jungle in 1978, “drinking the Kool-aid” has become a phrase for making a final commitment to something, for well or ill. I would like to offer “drinking the antifreeze” as a capsule description of undergoing a colonoscopy.
Referring back to my blog of two days ago, it’s all done. One moment I was talking with the medical people in the OR and the next moment I was talking with them only I was being informed it was all done. Later I learned the results were good: no polyps like the last time, no diverticulitis, nothing more troubling than hemorrhoids, which I knew about already and think of every time I read that a historic building is a noble pile. Big sigh of relief, then home and on to the project of restoring the digestive tract to something like normalcy. Yes, buy Depends, or Poise, or whatever it is you fancy.
I managed to drink the prescribed four liters of polyethylene glycol, trade name Trilyte, after doctoring it by adding quite a bit of aspartame. The company had put in saccharine, which is cheaper, and tastes it. Because it was a hot day, close to a record for Vermont, I lost a lot of water sweating, and that helped by creating thirst. In fact, after the evening three liters I downed a quart of Gatorade (recommended in the medical instructions) because my gut feeling, so to speak, was that I wasn’t adequately hydrated. Later, a nurse would tell me this was the right thing to do---that is, helpful in producing diarrhea.
As I said in the last blog, Trilyte is not as cathartic as the last colonoscopy’s “Fleet enema” laxative. This is a mixed blessing. You wonder if it’s really doing its job of cleaning things out so the probe can see what’s going on inside your colon. The diarrhea, for me, correlated pretty much with drinking fluid: in one end, out the other. So how was my body going to get rid of the last liter of Trilyte? To repeat: yes, buy some protective underpants, and wear them going to and from the hospital and until you have gotten back to normal. Otherwise, when you try to sit up or get out of the car or otherwise squeeze your stomach muscles, you’ll squeeze out the postdigestive equivalent of mucus—as if your intestines were shedding lining to get rid of the yucky stuff.
I learned in the hospital that some people throw up their Trilyte, and some can’t get all of it down. Do your best, it’s for a good cause.
Don’t plan anything that matters for the rest of the day, even if it seems, to look at the scheduling, as if a colonoscopy is a simple in-and-out process. (Colonoscopies seem ideally suited to sardonic humor; when I got up the morning of the operation, the phrase “Let’s get moving” came irresistibly to mind, for instance.) At one point during my glycol binge, I thought, “This stuff is making me sick to my stomach,” then realized, “That’s the whole point, to make you so sick to your stomach that your stomach gets sick of the stuff and evicts it.” The aftermath isn’t as bad, but the combination of leftover laxative and leftover anesthetic unsettles the whole metabolism.
Between the day of fasting on nothing but clear liquids, the day of the procedure, and the day of clearing mind and body, a colonoscopy realistically takes three days. Employers should realize this, and should be generous about giving that amount of time off, especially if there’s a company group health plan. Some things happen, inevitably, but colon cancer doesn’t have to be among them.
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