I’m reminded of a skit with the Coneheads from old original SNL. Small chance it was really some other alien characters in a Kids In The Hall skit. It was 30+ years ago and my memories of late night TV comedy all start to intertwine. Anyhow …
The aliens of whatever nature are discussing the distasteful to them task of performing routine anal probing on all the humans they stun, examine, and release. Which the humans mostly balk at despite the stunning. At which point one of the aliens comments that strangely enough some decent percentage of the humans actually seem to enjoy it.
Back to the real world and present times …
Congrats on finagling an extra and earlier colonoscopy! I think …
Well, a) I just didn’t TRUST that things would remain that good (current theory is that the absence of polyps is due to Ozempic and/or the weight loss resulting from that). b) By next year I’ll be on Medicare, and their clinic doesn’t do procedures on Medicare patients. Having escorted people to such procedures done in hospitals on 3 different occasions, it’s FAR less efficient.
I don’t know what they gave me for anesthesia, but they said I’d probably fall asleep and I didn’t. Fortunately, he set up a screen for me. I watched the whole thing. There’s a spray attachment on the end of the scope. Wherever there was some yellow liquid sticking to the side, he’d spray it off to get a good view..
For recovery, they lined us up on gurneys in what looked like a wide space in an office and waited awhile. I was loopy enough that I couldn’t laugh when the nurse said I shouldn’t be embarrassed about passing gas because “it’s the doctor’s gas.” Which was hilarious. I knew it was hilarious, but couldn’t respond at all.
Before I left, they gave me a polaroid of the entry to my appendix. I wasn’t unsteady when I walked. By the time I got to the car, I could tell my son and DIL how what the nurse said was funny. Took a nap when I got home. Felt normal after that.
My second ever colonoscopy was yesterday morning. First was only two years ago, because the Miralax-and-Gatorade prep didn’t quite work well enough. This time it was Gavilyte-G, which wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Lots and lots of chemical-lemon flavored water, but just viscous enough to be a little disturbing. But it worked well, no polyps, back in five years, phew.
As far as I know I was completely out for the procedure. My only disappointment is that I couldn’t spend juuust a little more time in a dopey haze waking up. I came to pretty quick.
Not polite to dump a bare link in there with zero explanation. Why do I care, in a colonoscopy thread, about a movie titled André is an Idiot?
But thanks to this:
I bothered to look it up. The 21st century still amazes me; that I could readily find something like this and share it with you all almost effortlessly.
You were 100% right; it was Kids in the Hall. Here you go; right up the old alley as it were!
Here’s a little more information about “Andre Is An Idiot.” It’s totally relevant to this thread, although I’m still not sure who Andre was or how this critically acclaimed documentary came to be made.
As to Andre’ … thanks for the backstory. I agree that really fits here.
There’s a very sad story of the late Doper @Maggie_the_Ocelot who died of colon cancer a few years ago. After a sorta similar process of passive and active denial until it was too late to prevent the tragic outcome. It makes for awful reading.
May each of us take her lesson to heart and do our screening diligently despite any ick factor or cancer fears we may have. That she will not have died in vain.
I think I asked one of the doctors a question he wasn’t expecting.
When I was scheduling my procedure, I was able to verify that the location and the doctor who would be performing the procedure were both covered under my insurance and all I would have to pay them was a twenty-five dollar deductible. But the scheduler was unable to tell me if the doctor doing the anesthesia was in the network. An important question because it would involve a two thousand dollar payment if he wasn’t.
So when he stopped in to discuss the anesthesia, my first question to him was whether he was in the same insurance network as the other doctor.
An important question even here, in Aus. As it happens for colonoscopy, surgeon and anesthetist normally, almost always, just take the government rates, and I have to pay the out-of-pocket just for the Hospital. There is about a 18 month wait for public-hospital colonoscopy, so I could put my name down now, and have no out-of-pocket if I wanted to go that path.
But – that’s not generally automatically true for any other random procedure, so you have to ask, or just take it on trust, which is what most people do, and what your doctors receptionist expects, so the information isn’t always clear or easily available.
Around here, the amount of money involved is not life-threatening. If you can’t afford private, you go public, and wait an amount of time that is non-zero for non-critical procedures. If you go private, mostly, you will be told up-front what you have to pay, because it makes debt recovery easier. (And if you go private, and they decide to charge more than the recommended* rate, it’s probably unrecoverable unless you’ve signed in advance)
But – when we had the cesarean, there was a second surgeon attending, and I’m d-d if I saw that coming, so for the colonoscopy I asked if I was going to be billed by the anesthetist, and I was eventually able to get an answer before the procedure.
*For a lot of stuff, the recommended private rate is around twice the government rate, and that difference is non-insurable.
The recovery, you ask? I got a guinea pig out of mine.
I went through the prep the day beforehand and reflected that Movi-Prep was a dreadfully unfair name. Sounds like it ought to go with popcorn and a Star Wars marathon or something. But no. Definitely not something I’d drink if an important health issue didn’t demand it.
I was dehydrated enough that three different nurses failed to get an IV on me. (Usually I lend my arm for advanced EMT students’ very first live sticks.) Eventually got medicated and remember nothing of the procedure. Afterward, I came to full consciousness with my wife helping me dress, so I assume I was at least somewhat awake beforehand.
I remember her putting me to bed at home with, “are you OK to sleep it off while I go to the (daughter’s school) rummage sale?” I answered, “zmmphxznnpppl-yeah-surrrre.” The next I knew she was shaking me awake with “Can we get a guinea pig ?!!” I replied: “Zmmphxznnpppl-yeah-surrrre.”
I dread to think what the next procedure will bring.
The first time I had a colonoscopy, after starving myself for 24 hours on a clear-liquids-only diet (accompanied by drinking a gallon of “pee out of your butt” cleanser), I finally went under, and when I returned to consciousness, I was told that … my prep was “inadequate”, the doctor couldn’t see enough in my colon, and I’d have to repeat the procedure.
Grumble grumble grumble.
Of course, I couldn’t just do another 24 hours of prep and come back the next day. No no no no. It was done in a surgery center and had to be scheduled weeks in advance. So I had to go through the whole thing all over again a month or so later, but this time with 48 hours of starving myself on a clear-liquid diet and two gallons of diarrhea-inducing colon cleanser.
At this rate I think colon cancer might be less traumatic.
