You're Going to Stick What Up My Ass?

Monday, 7:45pm - I can say this as I almost begin my the official colonoscopy prep: it kind of sucks taking care of sick children with no sustenance other than ginger ale and lukewarm chicken broth. I can also say this: unless you're an absolute masochist who delights in the sweet torment of off-limit baked goods, DO NOT make these on a day when you must fast:And finally, I say this: as a constant sufferer of the 'loose bowels,' still, I have only pissed out of my ass on one occasion. And I can't believe I'm going to duplicate that again, tonight, on purpose.

8:45pm - The four Dulcolax have been taken, as if I'd ever need a laxative to get this going. The Osmo Prep is staring back at me in all its orange-prescription-bottle glory. The pills are huge, and cost $35.00 for 28 of them. With the exception of the one lousy sushi experience, this is going to be the most expensive shit I've ever taken.

The instructions say I'm to start taking the Osmo Prep, 4 pills every fifteen minutes, at 9:00pm. The instructions also state "Remain close to toilet facilities." I guess that's because no matter how many times I've gone up and down on the Firm box doing step aerobics, the tighest, most toned ass capable of cracking a walnut betwixt its cheeks won't be able to hold back the shit torrent about to geyser out.

9:20pm - No pooh hath arrived. When, oh when, will the pooh cometh?

9:30pm - A rhyme for you: Some strange gurgling noises from the tum, and a wee bit of pooh from the bum.

9:45pm - 16 pills and 32 oz. of water downed. I keep picking up Franzen's The Corrections, and I keep putting it back down. It's heavy. There are New Yorkers strewn across the bathroom floor. Francine Prose's How to Read Like A Writer lies atop an extra roll of TP. Everything I brought in for the poop festival is way too cerebral. I have greatly overestimated my desire to read literature at this moment. I'm kicking myself for not buying a bunch of grocery store gossip rags. Britney without panties, a pregnant Tori Spelling waddling down the street, Linday Lohan out of rehab...now that's literature to shit by, ya know?

9:55pm - Husband walks in. He actually has the nerve to say, "Something stinks in here."

10:20pm - I am never drinking water again.

10:30pm - Is it still called poop if it's entirely liquid?

10:45pm - I keep thinking back to that SNL skit with the late Phil Hartman (bless his comedic soul). The skit is about cereal, specifically Colon Blow Cereal, and it's a parody of the how many bowls of your cereal will it take to equal the fiber in one bowl of Total. Well, this time it's how many bowls of your cereal will it take to equal the fiber in one bowl of Colon Blow, and you see Phil Hartman sitting up on top of this absolutely gigantic pyramid of cereal bowls. I imagine the results of eating such a cereal to be what I'm experiencing now.

11:30pm - I can finally see the moon over the trees from my perch on the potty. I really like the view from our bathroom window. Sitting on the commode, you can see only the tops of huge trees in our neighborhood, dancing in the breeze. You can see the sky and its inhabitants. It makes me think, ever briefly, that I'm in the solitude of some country house. Of course, then I wipe and stand up and see the brick box inhabited by some guy and his wife who voted for Bush in 2004. They were the only people on their street with a Bush sign.

I still remember crying during Kerry's concession speech, and going outside to take down my Kerry sign, feeling utterly defeated, thinking, Jesus, how many times in the next four years will I have to gaze upon Cheney's side-smirk? And then the recently moved-in guy who lives next door to the Bush supporter comes and knocks on my door.

"Hi, um, I think there's a tree in your backyard that's leaning in to my yard, and I was hoping to trim some branches from it. Are your parents home?"

Are my parents home? Umm...I'm just about 29. "Actually, I'm the homeowner. I live here with my husband and daughter."

"Oh jeez, you look so young."

"You're very sweet. And I can show you, we have no trees in our backyard. We don't even have a backyard. We have a patio custom made for sipping daiquiris in the heat of summer, but no trees."

It was a brief interaction, but it filled me with such hope. I still look young enough to be mooching off my parents!

11:45pm - I actually venture off the toilet to watch some TV. I cannot stand being a prisoner of the can. In the span of two minutes, I witness Anthony Bourdain being tasered and a guy who thought he had heart disease diagnosed with sleep apnea. Then, I run upstairs.

12:20am - Lily wakes. The poor thing has a cold. David is sleeping soundly. And rather than wake him up, I decide I'd rather have something else to complain about in the morning, so I get the baby to nurse her. While we're laying in bed, I have the urge and cannot stop to flow. It's a little mess contained within my pajamas, but still, the idea is horrid. On the one hand, there's the loveliness of nursing, and on the other, there is the sensation of being helplessly trapped by a mucous-choked toddler and not being able to do anything in time to avoid an accident. Yee ha!

2:20am - After hanging out on the bathroom floor huddled next to the radiator, and several up and down trips to the toilet, I decide that enough has passed for me to warrant lying down in bed. Bad idea. I wake not five minutes later, needing to change my pants once again. Good times! Liquid pooh pooled in one's underdrawers...that's sexy!

3:00am - I decide to lie down again, and this time, I get to sleep for 3 hours until my body successfully wakes itself to go. That's my night's sleep.

Hmmm...I should probably wrap this up. I had many more poohs in the morning, and couldn't eat, so I was beyond miserable. Around 9am, my head started pounding. It felt like someone was standing on my forehead. I needed Tylenol, I needed coffee. I needed a fucking donut. It reinforced my opinion that if I ever got lost in the wilderness without food and water and most importantly, Starbucks French Roast, that I would be a goner in the span of 48 hours. I can be extremely resilient, but I need sustenance along the way. I could climb mountains and walk through snow and cross rivers and spar with grizzlies, as long as I had a grande french roast with sugar and non-dairy creamer every morning to get me through. Unfortunately, one never happens upon a barista in the wilderness.

At the doctor's office at 1:30, they put in the IV and the very sweet nurse gives me some fentanyl for my head. I promptly vomit. Finally, I get to walk back to the room wearing only a bra, socks, my sneakers and a gown that opens in the back. On the table, the anesthetist tells me that he's putting the propofol in my IV, and that I'll be out in 10 seconds. I feel this very pleasant warmth in my chest, and the next thing I know is the nurse is there telling me to take it easy, holding my hand as I got down from the table.

Seriously, they could have put a large taper in my ass and lit it; they could have drawn faces on each cheek and taken pictures; they could have sodomized me with a salt shaker; they could have put in some firecrackers and beat my ass like it was a pinata and I wouldn't have had a clue. I wonder what the street value of that drug is, and how I could get a little for recreational use.

But anyway, my colon is every bit as youthful as my face. No nothing. No polyps, no tumors, no signs of anything chronic. And let me tell you, that means I don't have to go through this for at least another 9 years, until I'm 40. (I wonder if I'll still look young enough to be living with my folks at that point.) So...that wraps up my colonoscopy prep diary. I hope you feel especially acquainted with my nether regions.