Uhh, okay, y'all are scaring me. I've had prostate exams several times. What is the whole "snaking things where the sun don't shine" and preparations/lack of all about?
Thou hast to have thine colon cleansed so that thine doctor hast a bright place to snake his roto rooter camera looking for polyps.
The roto rooter job will occur while you are under the influence of a narcotic that eliminates your short term memory and really relaxes you. You will be awake during the procedure, but stoned and you will babble and say embarrassing things.
You just won't remember later. You need to be awake because you may need to move around. You will not know this because when the drug is wearing off you will think you are waking up. You are not waking up, just becoming aware, but with no memory of the procedure. You will still be stoned and still babbling embarrassing and stupid things for a little while.
That is the fun part, especially if the nurses remember you the next time you come in.
Writer Dave Berry explains it best below: (no pun intended)
... I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an
appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy
showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at
one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .
Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient
manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was
shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!' I left
Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,'
which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail
later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's
enemies. I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the
day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't
eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less
flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a
one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric
system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an
hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal
cleanser, with just a hint of lemon. The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody
with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may
result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact
with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have
you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as
the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours
pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then,
when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which
point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you
have not even eaten yet. After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next
morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the
procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was
thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that?
Flowers would not be enough. At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I
understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a
room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off
my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that,
when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked. Then a
nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted,
but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put
vodka in their MoviPrep. At first was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered
what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were
staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your
house. When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy
was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew
Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me
roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing
Queen' by Abba. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this
particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate. ¡You want me to turn it up?'
said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had
been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going
to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it.
One moment, Abba was shrieking 'Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine ...' and the
next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was
looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when
Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors.
I have never been prouder of an internal organ.
