It's done!

Finally, it's done. No, I'm not talking about a quilt. Not talking about my reupholstery project (though I wish I were). I'm talking about my colonoscopy. If you're squeamish or don't want to hear anymore, you can stop here, though I don't have any pics to show.

This is the little scope the doctors prefer you get done around age 50, if you're not having problems, just to see how things are looking. Well, I've rocked along almost 9 years past that. "Oh, I'm regular as clock work, I can wait," or "eew, that prep sounds terrible, I'll wait thank you". Couldn't put it off any longer, I knew it needed to be done.

The prep? Well, I practically built a little nest in the bathroom, thinking I'd be in there for several hours. I had a book or two, and a book of puzzles. Made sure the portable phone was in there, along with my cell. You know what? The anticipation was far worse than the actual doing. I'd heard the horror stories of drinking a whole jug of awful tasting stuff to clean you out. Nope. My doctor's method of choice is a little 1.5 ounce bottle of oral saline laxative, ginger lemon flavor thank you, that you combine with 1/2 glass of ginger ale, followed by a glass of water. Then a glass of clear liquid hourly after that for a few hours. Maybe it helped that I ate light over the weekend leading up to this, but it really wasn't a problem.

Probably the hardest part, in my case, was getting the little needle in my arm to give me the anesthesia. I have small veins anyway, and it took the 4th poke to make it work, but work it did. As Bob administered the anesthesia, he said I'd start to feel tired. I said ok, closed my eyes a second, and asked when they'd be starting. "We're almost finished. Open your eyes if you want to take a look." I had already been told it was not unusual to wake up after they were in, so I wasn't surprised at that...just surprised that we were already to that point. And no, there's absolutely no discomfort when they're on the way out.

So within an hour of the start of the procedure, it was done, I talked to the doc, got dressed, and was on my way home. And they gave me some pictures! How often do you get to see your insides??? As instructed, I had a driver (Elizabeth was good enough to take care of that). I guess my major complaint was that he recommended I wait a day to eat my Mexican food and margarita, and I have to admit I was looking forward to it, but that's ok. It can wait. The colonoscopy couldn't.

So here's me on my soap box: don't put it off for the fear of the unknown. It wasn't bad, and it's the right thing to do.