Full of surprises. Well you couldn’t write it could you? I had decided that I would under no circumstances write about my colonoscopy or rather the absence of said procedure but then fate took a hand in the form of the article / link below in the weekend papers. Never say never, I guess.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/10/leftfield-band-music-neil-barnes-interview-this-is-what-we-do
Having attempted to put the whole inglorious episode of last week to one side and find other topics to think about in the papers I turned the page and was greeted with the headline – ‘having a colonoscopy was like being in a nightclub’. If you want to know more, then feel free to read the whole thing.
Now true I’d walked out of the hospital before having the third of my colonoscopies so maybe this one would have been different to the first two. Those two were most certainly not like any nightclub of my experience but then maybe I just went to the wrong clubs. Who knows? Anyway I decided this was clearly a sign that I was meant to write something, so I’ll start off with a brief report. It has to be brief because, as I say, I walked out.
This because they kept me waiting for two and a half hours (and no end in sight if you’ll pardon the reference) not just waiting but sitting there in that bloody silly outfit designed to make you even more foolish than you might normally feel. So I got dressed, walked out and we drove to the nearest garage for coffee (banned until now) and a sort of doughnut – definitely banned until now. It was some kind of compensation but not sufficient to make up for the thought that I might now have to go through the whole lot again.
And believe me after a week’s worth of laxatives (sorry about the probably unnecessary detail) and low fibre diet I know what feeling uncomfortable is. You can imagine (or perhaps you can’t) just how pissed off I was to walk out at that very last moment. Anyway you will have to take my word for it.
This after the week before ‘procedure’ and again, to keep in brief just because I’ve been gifted all this blog material, doesn’t mean to say I need to be gratuitous about it. So briefly this was an MRI scan. To try and describe this ‘procedure’ calls for words that are not a part of my vocabulary.
I hadn’t expected to be surrounded by the machine (that part of it was mis-represented by the doctor that sold it to me as a way of proceeding with my prostate issues. My head was actually inside the machine and that was only a part of the discomfort. I wondered why they gave me the ear protectors – for my prostate? How can this be relevant?
The answer my friend was that the MRI machine made noises the like of which I haven’t hear since I sat (in my art student days) on the front row of the big screen cinema in a drug-induced haze oohing and aahing at the film 2001. The whole thing, the scan that is, was just pure science fiction on steroids. It whined and juddered and boomed (a bit like being inside Stephenson’s Rocket I imagine) , well as I say you had to be there. Or better still not. This was surprisingly unpleasant. The Colonoscopy I had expected to be nasty (although it wasn’t because I walked out) but the MRI scan I thought would be quite innocuous which it definitely wasn’t.
Full of surprises summary
So all this goes to prove … what, I’m not sure. That life is full of surprises and is never boring. But hang on shouldn’t those surprises be a mixture of pleasant and not so pleasant rather than simply degrees of unpleasant. The most fun I’ve had this week, and it was certainly a surprise, was leaving the hospital and driving to the nearest petrol station and choosing the sweetest, unhealthiest mixture of cakes, chocolate and coffee and scoffing them right there and making a vow, never to have another medical procedure. Yes, I know, fat chance but at this stage we both need to believe this to be true.
PS. Ha my doctor has just called me about making another colonoscopy appointment. And I’ve said yes. Another surprise. You’ve got to laugh.