Cleanliness is next to godliness.
That’s why, once a month, I take a bath whether I need one or not. This past month, however, I had to give myself an additional scrubbing because my very thoughtful wife scheduled our colonoscopies together.
“Couples who colonoscopy together, stay together,” she assured me.
If it wasn’t for her, I would probably avoid them altogether. Colonoscopies are not my idea of fun, although my younger sister told me she enjoyed hers.
“I don’t want to hear about your sex life,” I kidded her, but I knew what she meant. It’s relaxing to be put under and sleep a worryless slumber. Anyone with kids knows what I mean.
For some, the worst part of a colonoscopy is the day before, when you’re preparing for it. There’s a gallon of liquid you have to drink to clean yourself out. Digestive Drano. It’s usually cloyingly sweet, but this time it tasted like Alka Seltzer without the fizz. My wife and I had to drink an 8-ounce glass every 15 minutes. You don’t know how fast 15 minutes can go by until you’re waiting to drink something disgusting at the end of it. Fasting is also involved.
“Why am I being punished?” my stomach wondered.
A friend of my wife recently prepared for a colonoscopy. Sometime after drinking the foul concoction, her husband had a diabetic stroke and was taken to the hospital. His mother asked if she was going to cancel her procedure.
“Are you crazy? I’m not drinking that stuff again,” she told her, only she didn’t use the word “stuff”.
When my wife and I checked into Colonoscopies-R-Us, there were four people already there. One for a gastroscopy, which is when the camera goes in your mouth, and the other three for a colonoscopy, which is when the camera goes up your patoot. I thought about the poor guy there for the gastroscopy. For his sake, I hope they used a different camera.
As I write this, our colonoscopies went fine and we're waiting for the results. In fact, all of the medical tests I’ve taken in my life have come out okay, but I’m at an age now where I know one day one of my aches and pains will turn out to be more than just an ache or a pain.
In my last two columns I told you how my father insisted on going on his daily walk while it was raining, and caught a cold as a result. That was the end of that story, but life has a way of continuing past the ending.
My father was fine. My 8-year-old granddaughter, however, came down with a stomach bug soon after. Maybe she got it from him, maybe from school, who knows? You never realize how sad and quiet your home can be until one of your babies gets sick. I knew she was better when she handed me a cardboard box. My granddaughter had drawn a face on one side, so I put it on like a helmet.
“Do you smell anything?” she asked me.
“Why?” I asked her back.
“Because I farted in it.”
That stomach bug went down the line of Duchene family members. My youngest daughter and I were the last to catch it. When I was young I would get sick, then quickly recover. These days it takes longer for me to bounce back, but it does give me an opportunity to catch up on movies I’ve recorded but haven’t been able to watch. I can’t be in the middle of watching Sonny Corelone being brutally gunned down in The Godfather only to have my granddaughter walk in wanting me to put a box on my head.
My beautiful wife drove us to a medical clinic. My daughter laughed through her misery when she saw me carrying a box of Kleenex and a small trash can, but I knew what I was doing. At any given time I could sneeze or throw up. Hopefully, not at the same time. On the drive there she asked me for some Klennex, then tossed the used tissues in the trash can.
“Who’s laughing now?” I teased.
Checking in at the clinic, the receptionist made the mistake of asking what my symptoms were. I explained to her as delicately as possible that liquid was exploding out of each end of my digestive system.
“Da-aad!” my daughter moaned. “Do you have to be so loud?”
Inside the clinic it was obvious The Simulatrix (April 2022) was having fun at my expense. Why else would the clinic require me to use my phone to fill out information I've filled out for them a dozen times before? My head hurt and I could barely focus. Didn’t they know I was sick?
They called my daughter away to be helped first, which is as it should be. A few minutes later they called me. A few minutes after that, the doctor came in. The Simulatrix wasn’t done messing with me, so I had to repeat my symptoms a THIRD time.
“Da-aad!” my daughter called from the next room. “Do you have to be so loud?”
I’m kidding, of course. Anyway…
“You'll be okay,” the doctor assured me.
He left, and a nurse came in with something long and sharp.
I had to get a shot, and she gave it to me right in...
The End
