Lies, Lies, All Lies (and Irritability)

Katie Couric lied to us all. On national TV, no less. I mean, I believed her when she cheerily told us all that having a colonoscopy was no big deal. I suppose we should forgive her, though. After all, she wasn’t really lying. She had just completed the easy part of the procedure, the part in which the patient is drugged into La La Land. A person awaking from that, still woozy and relaxed would likely be willing to announce cheerily to us all that being mauled by a tiger is no big deal.

What she neglected to do was to tell us about the day before the procedure. The day before the procedure is a big deal. I know. I just went through it last week.

People don’t normally have to have colonoscopies until they’re at least fifty. However, I happen to be one of those lucky people blessed with the sort of body that when someone just very quietly whispers, “possible stressful situation ahead” fights back with such lovely weapons as migraines, walking pneumonia, and irritable bowel syndrome. Thus, in the summer of 2001, when I was beginning to wish I could just skip all this food-to-mouth-to-stomach business and be fed intravenously, my doctor recommended I have my first colonoscopy, to be sure it was nothing but IBS (read, "to be sure he didn't get sued for telling me it was just stress when in reality, I only had six months to live"). The results concluded it truly was nothing but IBS, and once I got a new boss at my old job, the IBS mysteriously became much less of a problem. Since switching jobs and becoming a telecommuter, I’ve had no problem at all with grumpy intestines, but my GP still thought it would be a good idea for me to start having regular colonoscopies, so, this, unfortunately, was not my first.

I’m beginning to understand a tiny bit why women suffer through the agony of childbirth and then decide to do it again. My female friends have always explained to me that women begin to forget that horrible pain once they have their little bundle of joy. By the time that “bundle of joy” has become a handful, a woman has all-but-forgotten the agony of childbirth in her desire for yet another “bundle of joy.” I’ve always thought all this was a bit of a lie and part of the conspiracy to get those who’ve never given birth to go ahead and try it. “Oh, yes, giving birth is painful, but you forget all about it, you know. I barely remember a thing, and besides, it’s just ‘baby pain,’ which is so different from other sorts of pain.’” No big deal, just like Katie Couric’s colonoscopy. All women must have a little of that “delivery-pain amnesia” stored somewhere, though.

You see, the last time I had this procedure, I don’t remember it being all that bad, despite warnings from those I knew who’d had one. Either I’ve become extraordinarily frail and intolerant since 2001, or some of that “delivery-pain amnesia” managed to snake its way from the back of my brain where it’s been sitting, convinced it would never find a use, up to the front. I seem to recall that last time my appointment was in the afternoon. Bob and I went out looking at kitchen cabinets and bought new running shoes. We hit traffic on the way to the surgery center, and I was a little late. The nurses all joked about how it was a good thing the doctor was always late, because wouldn’t it be horrible to have gone through all that prep for nothing. I distinctly remember thinking it hadn’t really been all that bad. I don’t remember spending that much time on the toilet, and I certainly don’t remember starving to the point I would gladly have begun gnawing on my arm if I’d been allowed to do so.

This go-around, I had to keep reminding myself that people pay money (good money. Really good money) to go to spas where they flush out their systems this way. These thoughts occurred, quite obviously, early on in the ordeal. By the time 9:00 p.m. on Procedure Eve rolled around, I was thinking “What a sick, sick society I live in. I can’t believe people have managed to convince others to pay them for this sort of torture.”

To tell you the truth, the worst part for me is not being able to eat. I’m not someone who would make a good candidate as an “orthodox” anything, if it involves fasting, since I consider a fast of five hours to be way too long. You can tell time by my stomach. If I eat breakfast at 7:00 a.m., I will know it’s 10:00 a.m. when my stomach starts growling. If I ignore its warning, I’m likely, within an hour, to start snapping off heads of people who happen to get in my way.

You know how you’ll read books about Native Americans and the shaman who was able to induce trance-like states, often by foregoing food for days on end? Or maybe you’ve read books like A Canticle for Leibowitz, in which the monks do the same. I have friends and acquaintances who’ve talked to me about out-of-body experiences, or experiences in which they’ve felt overwhelmed by some sort of other-worldly possession or presence. I’m jealous. My brain is way too skeptical of such things. I'd love to believe in them, but although I've managed to believe in many things I've never seen or experienced for myself (like the existence of Antarctica), these are the sorts of things I just don't really believe happen, despite the fact my imagination longs for them to be real. I believe they happen with the help of hallucinogenic drugs, but many things can happen with that sort of help.

When I do go without food for any length of time, I’m always sort of hoping that maybe I’ll benefit by having some sort of mystical, monk-like, momentary transformation that will make me truly believe in such things. After all, since I’m someone who gets hungry after three hours, maybe I don’t have to disappear in the desert for days on end with nothing but bottles of water in order suddenly to find myself in a trance-like state. The day before a colonoscopy is a good day to hope for such things.

But no such luck, of course. I just find myself getting hungrier and hungrier, my stomach now gone from growling to roaring. Everything I pick up to read annoys me. Do you know how often authors describe some sort of meal being served and eaten? I struggle through these passages, sipping my low-sodium chicken broth that makes me long to go out and kill a few chickens, just because I can. Then what happens is I get incredibly weepy. Everything just seems so, so sad. If you doubt me, just know that my eyes were tearing up while reading Maisie Dobbs. Those of you who have read Maisie Dobbs know perfectly well that The Yearling it is not. On a full stomach, I wouldn’t be caught dead crying over such a book.

Truly, my only salvation was knowing that in less than 24 hours, I was going to be blissfully sedated. For someone who has suffered on-and-off from insomnia since age 13, anesthesia certainly rivals the nectar of the gods. To be instantaneously whisked from telling your doctor that you’re moving soon to seeing bunnies is enough to confirm your belief in some place called “heaven,” whatever it might be (perhaps a place in which anesthesia is needed for survival the way water is needed in this world?).

And that’s where Katie Couric was when she lied to us all on T.V. She’d probably just been skipping through fields with bunnies. And now I’ve done my bit to set the record straight for you.