happy 40th Bday

Happy 40th Birthday!

(Now finish your cake and assume the position--it could save your life.)

by Wally Nichols (203) 858-3634 (cwn4@aol.com)

More Americans will die this year from colorectal cancer (56,000) than all the troops we lost in Vietnam and for some, early detection might well have changed the outcome. Plenty of people dread the preventative screening procedure that seems a midlife milestone and I’m no exception. Its very specter has graced past birthday cards… “Congrats on your 25th Birthday, only 25 years more until “the exam.” Yet I’m told it is completely painless and relatively quick. So what gives?

For starters, my family history makes the doc fast track me by ten years. So I created a Top 10 list of things to write on index cards that might or might not be scotch-taped to my backside , by my wife, under the gown, morning of. Index cards that would only be seen after I'm knocked out on Profanol- though I fancy hearing muffled chortles though the haze of anesthesia. "Hey, this guy's funny! Yeah and what an intestine!" The one liners on the cards include; "I'm just in for a hangnail--is this really necessary?"

The prep, of course, is the tough stuff. 24hrs without food and it feels like 93 days on a life raft. I start looking at my toenails like they are prime rib. I was told on my pre-procedure consultation that all sense of pride, along with one's coat, is checked at the medical center's door. It is the same for everyone. There is no social or economic caste that is immune to cancer, and no human without a large intestine. Thus, by this strange calculus, we are all in the same boat.

I've had plenty of time to consider the term Gastroenterologist in the days leading up. I'll confess, I've never given the professional title much thought. But in as much as a bartender calls himself a 'mix-ologist', it stands to reason that this medical specialist can call themselves an 'enter-ologist' For they surely do just that.

One’s intestine must be completely void to not get false readings by the inserted flexible tube-like camera. (I’m relieved to know that this camera is not at all shaped like the digital camera I own). At our initial consultation, the doctor had pushed a 2-pack of laxative across the desk and warned me about the taste. The bottles said ‘lemon-ginger’ flavor and I figured I could cowboy through 1.5 ounces of anything lemon flavored. I have since recalibrated my thinking. It was hideous and almost caused immediate nausea, which, I reminded myself, was still better than undetected cancer. Bottle #1 is to go down the night before. My wise wife discourages me from drinking it in the car before we’re home. We suddenly hit heavy traffic around the next corner and she just smiles. I'm foolish to doubt its efficacy because I consider my GI track to be extraordinarily strong-willed and it doesn’t seem like it’s working. "Maybe I should take that second one right now instead of in the morning?" My wife rolls her eyes. The answer to that question comes upon me like a runaway freight train, and the notion of ever going off doctor's advice is quickly dismissed.

Morning of, I'm up at 6. Giddy like a September schoolgirl except not giving a damn about what I'm gonna wear or who will be in my clique this year. After a long night, the second bottle of laxative that morning seems like overkill to me but I take it anyway and brace myself for another few hours alone. At 9am, I make my way to the Endoscopy Suite (euphemistically termed to create the image that it might just be slightly less accommodating than the Presidential suite , though no less expensive I'm sure).

I’m given a gown and told to wait in a makeshift curtained area. I can’t help but play with the medical gear on the wall. Finally the staff enters. It's like a 3 person pit crew for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Everyone is there for a purpose, everyone has a job. It even looks like everyone has a wrench. I’m wheeled into the procedure room and told that the tool has a camera for imaging polyps in the large intestine. "Hey is this gonna be available on Netflix?" Not even a chuckle. If polyps are detected en-route, they are removed with small tweezer-like blades.

"Do you have any questions?," the doctor asks.
“Well, ummm, yes,” I say. “Could the machine and I have a few minutes alone, you know, to get to know each other?"

They release the sedative into my left arm’s vein and I'm out.

The procedure, for which I am completely asleep, lasts 15 minutes and is virtually pain free unless you are a sniveling needle-sissy, like me. Assuming no real complications, you simply wake up and thank the doctor and anesthesiologist for having paid such close attention in Medical School. Then there is a half hour ‘recovery’ which for me was quickly used up by playing some more with the stethoscopes on the wall. The doctors wouldn’t let me go home alone or even drive for a day.

I got a diploma congratulating me on a completely clean GI track, some creepy digital photos to prove it, and an invitation to come back in 5 years... Which, I suppose, gives me plenty of time to get my birthday suit dry cleaned!