Yesterday I had a colonoscopy and an upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy.Endoscopy means looking inside and that's exactly what happens. In my case it was the colon and my upper GI tract that my doc wanted to inspect.
Thanks to Wiki Commons for the image. I didn't take any photos myself. And honestly I did not observe this thing because I remember nothing after the nurse told me to roll over on my left side. Well, I remember saying "Is this okay?" but I do not remember the answer. So I guess it must have been okay.
They gave me Versed and Demerol I think. I was not taking notes though. I think they said the former would help me forget. I said "I didn't need much help forgetting stuff" which I thought was rather witty and humorous. But it must work pretty well.
The next thing I remember after turning on my left side is waking up in another room where I briefly noticed this nurse next to me. Then I had this irresistible need to shut my eyes which I satisfied. The next time I opened my eyes they stayed open and the nurse said I should get dressed while she went to get Judy. She drew this curtain around the bed and I got everything on apparently because I was dressed by the time Judy got there.
I thought it was funny about the clothes when I first arrived because the nurse that took me into this room told me I should leave on my socks and my undershirt. I don't know why that seemed funny to me but it did then and it does now. She also explained the hospital gown to me which also seemed funny as in "put the open side on your backside." I never laughed though.
Oh, yes, there was a toilet in the room and I was invited to use it and I did and there was discussion about what the result looked like. Reminded me of some conversations I've had before in the last few weeks.
Then we talked about horses and the nurse got a wheelchair and I sat in it and she pushed it out the door eventually. I saw our car and I said "I can walk over there" and that's what I did. Except the nurse grabbed hold of me and walked over there with me.
I do not remember the drive home at all. But we must have driven home because I do remember being at Judy's house for a few minutes. Then we drove over to the Banbury house but I don't remember that either.
Next I sat down in a recliner and I don't remember anything else until I awakened. I asked Judy if I had been asleep. She laughed.
Then I fixed myself something to eat: instant oatmeal, instant grits, and 2 of those itty bitty boxes of raisins. That made me feel a lot stronger. So next I found some leftover Thai vegetable fried rice from last week that I had thrown in the freezer (always thinking ahead!!). I put it in the microwave and a few minutes later I was eating it.
I checked the computer but had no energy to do much of anything about anything.
Judy, who had about as little sleep the night before as I did, said she needed a nap. I said I needed a nap, too. She was going to nap on the couch but I said I needed to be flat so I headed for the bed.
When I awakened it was like 5:30 or somthing and we had to go feed the horses. She said she hoped the nurse didn't find out because I wasn't supposed to do any "chores" today. Well, feeding our horses isn't very hard unless I have to carry feed sacks to the feed cans. I had already done that (again thinking ahead!!).
We visited Judy's mom a while and on the way home we stopped at a Sonic. At first I didn't think I wanted anything but then I thought a lemon berry real fruit slush would be really good so I got one.
That slush was really, really good. I have to get another one of those soon.
I think I took another nap maybe or maybe not. I watched Chuck on TV I remember. Then I went to bed and next morning came and I was awake again. I fixed myself some left over Starbucks and instant oatmeal and raisins. Then I started this blog entry.
I have to quit though because I have to get ready to go to the urologist at 9.
Thanks for all the good wishes everyone.
5 comments:
Well, I'm glad you made it through ok, although it doesn't sound like a wonderful day. Frankly I'm a bit afraid of that stuff they give you to make you "forget".
When do you get your test results?
They told Judy the result which was nothing at all. No anything from either end.
After all the work I did on drinking that stuff and getting cleaned out I thought someone should have said "You did a great job getting yourself clean! That's the cleanest colon we've ever seen" or something like that. But there was nothing said.
Versed is a wonderful medication and certainly has it's purposes. The first time I saw it used was on a boy who had dislocated his elbow and was brought to the ER while I was doing my clinical time for my EMT requirements. The dr. needed to manually reset the elbow and gave the boy Versed so he would forget the procedure which would have certainly been extremely painful and very traumatic for him to remember. After the effects of the medication wore off, he forgot how he screamed like a banshee while the dr. was twisting and yanking.
Anyhow, I'm glad everything is fine. Let me take this opportunity to say you did an excellent job with drinking your "cocktail". I'm sure you were clean as a whistle:)
glad you survived your procedures. i had my first colonoscopy about 6 months ago and kept chuckling at parts of your post. i too thought it was funny being told certain things.
for me, the prep was much worse than the procedure. i ended up vomiting as the prep didn't start working soon enough and there was no more room up above for me to drink anymore!
I'm glad things turned out well. My dad had a colonoscopy yearly because they found a cancerous pulip the first time. He said the prep was the worst part, too. Good job on the prep part. No doubt they would have given you heck if it wasn't squeaky clean!
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