Today I underwent one of those splendid post-50 rights of passage: the colonoscopy. Contrary to Younger Girl’s horrified assertions, the procedure itself is not particularly unpleasant; it’s the prep that gets you. Yesterday I consumed only clear liquids (no coffee, for God’s sake!) and, in the evening, got to take many pills washed down with literal gallons of Gatorade, in hopes of cleaning my colon to sparkly brightness. Then had to get up at 5am and take more pills and more Gatorade, all so I could report at 9am for a 10am procedure.
But once I got there, the whole thing was remarkably pleasant; I was settled in under heated blankets on a gurney in a darkened room, and drowsed (without sedation) for about 45 minutes while the doctor got done doing another procedure. The only discomfort was the automatic pressure cuff on my left arm, which would occasionally expand in search of my numbers. Finally the doctor came in, exchanged a few bright words, and opened the drip on the sedation.
“From here to your brain takes about 30 seconds,” she said, pointing to my elbow.
Next thing I know it’s an hour or so later and I am deliciously languorous and remember nothing. My colon, they inform me, is nice and tidy and polyp-free. I get dressed slowly, in hopes of not falling off the gurney. Once dressed (I remember putting on my shirt but not my shoes or jacket) I am guided out into the hall and into the hands of my friend Ellen, who had come to take me home. I remember riding home and perhaps even conversing (though I don’t remember taking the elevator downstairs). I got home. I went to bed. At 2:30 YG showed up with Dark Chocolate M&Ms and Milano cookies, apparently her idea of convalescent food. I went back to sleep. I have been pretty useless today, and it’s been embarrassingly enjoyable.
Apparently the stuff they piped into my arm was Verced, a kissing cousin of Valium, and one with “mild amnesiac qualities” which allows one to forget the procedure. They may also have dripped in a little Fentanyl, an opiate with, according to Wikipedia, a greater half-life than heroin. All this is supposed to put one out and make one forget what happened. And it works. It’s 12 hours later and I still have that groggy-around-the-eyelids feeling, as if I could fall asleep at once if I lay down. I feel rather as if I spent the morning at an eccentric spa.