Pre-Colonoscopy Retro Diary

[Started writing on Thursday] I'm generally pretty ok with my upcoming colonoscopy tomorrow afternoon. Some people might freak out at the thought of being knocked out or being probed like an alien, but I'm mostly alright with those aspects of it. What I'm most stressed out about is what my diet is supposed to be for the next 30 hours or so. The day before, you are only allowed some combination of the following for breakfast: 1 hardboiled egg, white toast with nothing on it, an 8 ounce can of Ensure, low sodium chicken soup, Jell-O, and clear liquids. Sounds like a meal fit for a nuclear holocaust, right? To make it more bearable, I'm going to spread it out over the morning (f*** eating this all at 1 sitting). Well, it gets better...no solid food for lunch or dinner the day before (clear liquids only). And nothing but that bowel flush stuff at night and the morning of.

I know people have had to go longer without food or drink (just ask Krissy) for medical situations, but I am admittedly a pretty big baby when it comes to food. If I go half an hour longer without eating than I want to, cranky and grumpy only begin to describe my mood. I can only imagine what I will be like tomorrow at around 12pm (my appointment's scheduled for 2)...God help us all. So, as a way to deflect the stress of my colonoscopy-fast over the next day or so, I figured I would do a pre-colonoscopy retro diary post. What could be more fun than that? Right? Right? No? Ok...

Oh, shut the f*** up, Condescending Wonka.

Thursday

5:45am - Woke up, dressed, and drank my 1 allotted can of Ensure for the day. These doctors know I'm a big dude, right? I could down 4 or 5 of these at a time, easy. Drinking Ensure makes me feel like a menopausal lady...actually, wait, this s*** tastes pretty good! I can really only have 1?

7:26am - Got to work a few minutes ago. Time to have my dry, bland, tasteless toast. Mmm mmm, good.

9:01am - Jell-O snack pack thingy...did I mention that I hate Jell-O and have always hated Jell-O even when I was a little kid? I didn't? Ok, well, I do. Thanks, colonoscopy.

10:02am - Never in my life have I gobbled up chicken noodle soup so ferociously. That probably doesn't bode well for my impending hunger issues.

11:34am - 2nd Jell-O and 2nd can of chicken noodle soup equals my last meal of the day, as I just snuck it in before noon. F*** off, colonoscopy instructions...you don't know when I eat breakfast!

1:56pm - My belly is starting to gurgle in that "feed me" sort of way...and so it begins.

Mmmhmm, mmmhmm, yep.

Friday

7:47am - Notice the huge gap in time there between entries? Well, blame that on a massive headache, drinking that bowel prep garbage juice, and then sitting on the toilet all night because of said bowel prep. At this point, I could probably eat a horse, but I actually don't feel terrible hunger-wise. I think my body has adjusted and is going into digging into your reserves mode...like a grizzly bear who's hibernating for the winter. I'm taking my 2nd and final dose of this bowel prep drink as I type this sentence. I cannot stress this point enough: it tastes awful. If anyone who has had it before tries to tell you differently, they either took a different one than the one I'm taking or they don't know what they're talking about. Krissy sipped it and tried to tell me it wasn't that bad, and I wanted to smack her...seriously.

1:10pm - In the waiting room now at the medical center. After my umpteenth poop, I don't think I have anything left in my body to emit. Hunger is starting to hit me again. Let's get this show on the road.

2:01pm - Getting gowned-up...let's do this.

4:00pm - Where am I? Did you guys start yet? You're finished?!?

4:05pm - Hitting up IHOP now. I'm ordering 1 of everything.

As always, Ron Swanson knows what's up.

The outcome was a little bit of good news, bad news. The bad news? I have ulcerative colitis. The good news? It looks like that's all I have. It means that most likely this is going to be an ongoing issue for the rest of my life. However, it should only be intermittent periods of "flare-ups" followed by longer periods of "remission," where I could theoretically eat or drink just as I did BC (before colitis). So, at the end of the day, I'm going to live. This is treatable and manageable, and more than that it's a load off my mind...and, therefore, a load off of my stomach.