Sunday, October 5, 2008

Start Your Day With a BIG Laugh!

These days I'm looking for humor wherever I can find it and a couple of my friends have supplied me with some choice tidbits. You saw one last evening and now I want to start your Sunday with a whoop! We've got another month of politics/Palin/McCain/Wall Street, let's laugh when and while we can!

From Newshound Dave Barry's Colonoscopy Journal

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 mein 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 lukewarmwater. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32gallons.) 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 theMoviPrep 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. 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 & 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 Ispurt 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 I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this is,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 FireHose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house. When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedureroom, 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, 'DancingQueen' had 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 yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of 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.

About the writer: Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humorcolumnist for the Miami Herald. On the subject of Colonoscopies...Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous... A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:
1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'
3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'
4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'
5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.'
6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'
7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...'
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'
9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'
11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'
12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.' The best one of all:
13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying my head is not up there?'

6 comments:

Kate said...

Hi Sylvia, Oh I do sooo wish I had found this entry yesterday, I have laughed so much over this one, it was just so funny - though I can understand why subjects of this test might not find it very humourous. Thanks Kate x.
P.S. Thanks too for adding to my followers list ... Cheers !

Deborah Godin said...

Thanks for the comic relief!! These days we need to get our laughs any place ( ! ) we can find them.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that is too funny - especially #13 on the list. LOL

I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy next month. The only part I'm not dreading is the sleeping part.

Judy said...

This is just hilarious. I sent it to my sister. She just had this done!

Margie's Musings said...

Very funny! I have had that test and without any anesthetic so I did not find it quite as funny as some.

clairz said...

Help, I have tear spurtage from my eyes! This is too funny, but a perfect antidote to my morning's grim mood (caused by too much thinking about the economy and the campaign).

Who'd have known that thinking about a colonoscopy would be preferable to thinking about McPalin spurtage.