Colonoscopy: The prep is the worst part, but it can save your life
The pharmacist handed me a large container with a heap of powder at the bottom of it. I frowned when I realized what it was.
Sodium Chloride, Sodium Bicarbonate, and Potassium Chloride.
Well, okay. I didn’t know it was all that stuff. I just knew I was looking at the ingredients of the foul, four-liter drink I was going to have to guzzle in the day leading up to my first-ever colonoscopy.
No! Wait! Come back! What I’m going to say here is important! Or will be, a few paragraphs from now.
Anyway. Call it karma. Call it what-comes-around-goes-around. Call it the circle of life. Whatever you want to call it, time has a way of settling scores.
I was at work one morning in my late 20s. My boss was acting like a bear. Eventually, I found out why. As he pulled on his coat and headed out the door at around noon, he announced he was going to have a colonoscopy done.
“Hope they find that hair across your rear end!” I called out to him, as he tried not to let the door hit him on the way out.
I may have used a shorter, whole other word than "rear-end."
Yeah, well, if my old boss could see me now. In February, I called my doctor and asked to be scheduled for a colonoscopy. At 51, I felt slightly behind the eight ball because all my life I had heard you were supposed to get your first one at 50. Then it was announced a couple of years ago that you should have your first one at 45. That made me feel really behind the eight-ball.
The woman at my doctor’s office told me the hospital’s gastroenterology department was backed up. I wonder if she caught what she said. In any event, I was asked to call back a couple of months later and try to schedule a colonoscopy. I found this curious, as, technically, I had already waited six years, but I obliged.
When I woke up the day before my colonoscopy – or my “procedure,” as I called it – I faced a day of fasting, with nothing on the menu but Jell-o and popsicles. As a kid, I would have loved this eating plan. As an adult, not so much. But at least I was able to have both treats in my favorite colors. Had red and purple been my thing, I would have been out of luck. My orders were clear. No red or purple food.
About 15 hours before my procedure, I filled that jug with water and shook it like I was a human paint can-mixer, like the kind you see at the hardware store. I stuck the jug in the fridge to let the solution cool off a bit.
I had to drink one cup every 20 or 30 minutes until I had drunk half the solution in the jug. When I poured that first cup, I looked at the words “with lemon flavor” on the jug’s label, and appreciated the failed effort to make the solution seem tasty.
I was able to tolerate that first cup. I found it no more off-putting than when you have to gargle water and salt to tame a sore throat. My feelings changed for the worse after the second or third cup. I downed those first two liters over four hours, most of which I spent living in the bathroom. Shortly after that last cup, I went to bed and, surprisingly, enjoyed about five hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep.
I woke up at three and, as directed, finished the final two liters a good three hours before my procedure. After that final cup, I ceremoniously slammed the empty jug onto the counter. If it was a can, I would have crumpled it in my fist. I was done with that stuff. I had exhausted every trick in the book, from gulping each cup quickly to imagining that I was sipping a nice, ice-cold margarita, and they had stopped working by the fourth or fifth cup the night before.
At the hospital, I changed into a johnnie, with the flap open in the back, climbed onto the rolling bed, and immediately turned onto my side and faced the wall.
“Do you have a bad back?” the nurse asked me.
“Huh? No.”
Turned out I had thought they were going to do the colonoscopy right then and there, in the little changing room separated only by a curtain from the rest of everyone else in the hospital. Hey, what did I know? I had never had one of these “procedures” before. I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling.
A few minutes later, the gastroenterologist approached my bedside and told me what to expect in the moments ahead. He told me everything will be fine.
“I know my way around a colon,” he said.
He smirked when he said that. The way he did it, he reminded me of a friend I have. This friend is a professional standup comedian.
The thing is, the doc was correct. Once in the surgery room, someone put a mask on my face for the anesthesia. I heard someone else in the room say, “Today’s patient is Shawn Sullivan, age 51.” And then, the next thing I knew, it was 20 minutes later, and I was back in the little changing room. When the assistant rousted me awake, I was alarmed to learn that the procedure had already taken place. I had thought mere seconds had passed.
I got a clean bill of health and am scheduled for my second colonoscopy ten years from now.
What everyone told me is true: the preparation is the worst part. The procedure itself is painless and over in no time.
And now, that important part I foreshadowed at the top. If you’re 45 or older, and you have not had your first colonoscopy, schedule it now. If the results are that you are healthy, you’ll be glad you now know. If the results are not ... well, you’ll be glad something serious has been caught, early and can now be battled head-on.
But even if you’re younger than 45, you still want to be conscientious about colorectal health. Medical studies are now showing a significant risk of colon cancer in young people born between 1981 and 1996. Though not a millennial, Chadwick Boseman, the talented star of “Black Panther,” the Marvel blockbuster, died from colon cancer at the age of 43.
The symptoms of colon cancer are a change in bowel habits, blood in or on your stool, rectal bleeding, diarrhea or constipation, unexpected weight loss, cramping and weakness, and fatigue, according to the American Cancer Society.
Not a pleasant topic, this. But a necessary one to talk about. If you’re 45 or older and have not had your first colonoscopy, it’s time to pick up the phone. And if you’re younger, but are experiencing some of the signs listed above, you surely want to do the same. I wish all of you good health.
Shawn P. Sullivan is an award-winning columnist and is a reporter for the York County Coast Star. He can be reached at ssullivan@seacoastonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Colonoscopy: The prep is the worst part, but it can save your life
