>The Colonoscopy Saga ~ A Tale with a Great 'Ending'! he he he.

>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 Peterborough.

>

>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 'Movi-Prep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a

>microwave oven. I will discuss Movi-Prep in detail later; for now suffice

>it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of North

>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 flavour.

>Then, in the evening, I took the Movi-Prep. You mix two packets of powder

>together in a one-litre plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water.

>(For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a litre is about 32 gallons.)

>Then you have to drink the whole jug.

>

>This takes about an hour, because Movi-Prep 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 Movi -Prep, clearly written by somebody with a

>great sense of humour, 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.

>

>Movi -Prep 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

>Movi-Prep 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

>litre of Movi-Prep, 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 Movi-Prep 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

>Movi-Prep. 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 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 anaesthesiologist. 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 anaesthesiologist 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' 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 humour columnist

>for the Miami Herald.