Some if you may know that I’ve been having close encounters of the medical kind during the last few months.
And, no, it wasn’t COVID.
It was really nothing super serious, although, for the first time in my life, my doctor ordered me not to exercise. Every other time I’ve gone to a doctor I have been pestered to get more exercise, not less.
Times change, I guess.
Among the most recent encounters was a colonoscopy, which, if I remember my Latin, means “peek-a-boo.”
I won’t go into the details of the procedure. Anyone over 50 should be pretty well familiarized with it.
Step one involved, shall we say, cleaning out the drain. In my case, that meant taking 24 pills and drinking 96 ounces of water. If I didn’t float away, the idea was to make everything clean and pretty for the photo session.
Some years ago, I had a similar experience. It started in North Augusta, South Carolina, and involved a bucket of crawdads, a pitcher of beer and an airplane.
I should explain.
I was at a business meeting and, as is often the case on such trips, that meant going out and playing with the gang. We happened to go to a North Augusta bar on “Crawdaddy Night.” Because I’ll do (almost) anything once, that meant partaking of the local cuisine before I had to fly back to Alaska the next morning. Suffice it to say, a good time was had by all, including me.
But the next day presented a challenge few have overcome. I made it to the plane in Atlanta OK, but I knew something was up. More accurately, I should say that something was down. After takeoff, I parked myself in the restroom and stayed there for most of the trip. The flight attendants checked on me, and I assured them that as long as I stayed put I’d be fine.
And by the time I got to Phoenix I was rising – there could be a song title in there somewhere. I sat down in my “other” seat and had some lunch.
Unfortunately, my gastrointestinal track took this as “reloading,” I returned to the lavatory all the way to Seattle.
I’m sure Delta Airlines has a plaque with my name on it in that restroom for the most miles ever flown in that
part of the plane.
When I landed in Seattle, I was cleaned out in every sense of the word. No amount of pills or water could ever compare to that.
The other part of a colonoscopy involves a tiny camera on a long thingamajig. I know all about those types of devices. I have a couple of relatives in the sewer cleaning business. (Their motto: “Blood ain’t thicker than water where we work.”) They run a long thingamajig into a sewer pipe to see where the problem is. When they find it, they use a roto-rooter type tool to clear things out.
That may be a little too much for my delicate constitution. I went into Sampson Laboratories in my garage and took a bottle scrubber I found in the kitchen and attached a GoPro camera to it with duct tape.
The size may be a bit of a problem, but I have ten years to work on it before my next colonoscopy, and I’ll be able to do the whole thing myself.
All I have to remember is: step one, administer a bucket of crawdads and a pitcher of beer, and, step two, prepare the bottle brush and GoPro.
And I’ll be good to go!
Carl Sampson is a freelance writer and editor. He lives in Stayton.
