Saturday, December 01, 2012

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right



Yesterday I had a colonoscopy for the first time in my life.   Probably most people who read this blog who aren't over 40 or so have little idea of what that actually entails.   To put it bluntly, you eat a very low fiber diet for a couple of days and then the day before you have the colonoscopy you're supposed to have a liquid diet until...it's time to take the "super laxative" they  prescribe for you.  And then there's predictable results.

You take that super laxative again (in the regimen I was prescribed) a few hours before you're supposed to show up at the hospital for the actual procedure.  After the second ingestion of the super laxative, along with a liter of water, you're not supposed to eat or drink anything until the procedure.  Suffice it to say, when you're at the hospital, you really aren't in any shape to do much of anything.  You're dehydrated, your electrolyte balance has gone blooey,  and your mind can't really focus on anything. 

Being at the hospital in this shape, when for all intents and purposes you're otherwise healthy is strange, to say the least.  I was in the "short stay" area of the hospital, but it still was a hospital, I was in a hospital bed wearing a hospital gown, etc. etc. etc.  The TV had some kind of "hospital advice" channel for new mothers.  Someone had left a "Weekly Standard" as reading.   I tried reading some blather about the "Tea Party," and didn't get far.  Then I went through 2 episodes of "Law and Order" on the TV (even now I haven't a clue what the story line was).  They wheeled me into the place where the colonoscopy was to occur,  gave me some kind of Valium derivative mixed with fentanyl  - and I was out.


Anyway, I had the predictable meal afterwards, slept, ate again, etc. etc. slept,  and then I woke up this morning.

And I sat.

And everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be.   


It probably is related to the microflora ecosystem in my gut and its relative changes after the procedure, as well as a whole host of other aggregates and things, but ...anybody else ever feed profoundly good after something like this?



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