Every so often a reader splashes an outstanding eMail across my computer screen and I have to share it with you or burst. I wish I could take credit for more than just passing this one along, but Dave Barry is a humorist without equal in his larger than life description of the colonoscopy experience.

If you’ve ever had one, you’ll find his every pearl strikes an all too familiar note. If you haven’t, and you’re over fifty, stop playing chicken with your health and schedule a date with your doctor. This article was originally published October 23, 2008 but Dave’s perspective remains perpetually fresh:

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 Minneapolis. 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 ‘MoviPrep,’ which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of 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 flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep 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 MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, 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. MoviPrep 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 MoviPrep 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 liter of MoviPrep, 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 MoviPrep 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 MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn’t thought of this, 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 anesthesiologist. 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 anesthesiologist 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’ has 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 shrieking ‘Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from 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.

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Miami Herald … and now you know why.

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The automatic doors parted like theater curtains opening to signal show time. We were promptly greeted by a whiff of urine and vinyl … along with a tired looking nurse who added the subtle scent of lilacs to the strange mix. It had been nearly a year since we last saw Ed and a week since we received the first of three calls urging us to come as quickly as possible. He was having trouble swallowing and they weren’t sure how much longer he would last. We waited through a nerve-shredding week, as spring snows closed in on both ends of a twelve hour trip and made travel impossible, until now.

When they brought Ed from his room, the first thing I noticed were his hands … they were neatly folded in his lap, no longer grasping anything or holding on as before. His head tilted downward under its own weight and he appeared to be sleeping … we were told that was pretty much what he did these days. His now fragile frame was steadied in the wheelchair by a loosely fastened seatbelt and it quickly became clear that his dignity was now slipping away in full partnership with his quality of life.

Vigi worked on weaving her daughterly magic and I worked on trying to extract that perennial wad of gum from my throat. Neither of us had much success. The air in the lounge seemed to be growing more stale by the minute, as an old wall clock ticked away the time. We decided the three of us might be more comfortable in the fresher surroundings of the solarium. For the most part Ed was unresponsive but, even so, with all the loving respect of a small girl who once found strength in resting her head on Daddy’s shoulder, Veege asked him if he wanted to go.

I would have given odds that this sunny glass porch couldn’t possibly have been part of the subterranean atmosphere on the other side of the wall. Everyone’s mood improved almost instantly … even Ed stirred a little in his chair as if something had relaxed in his soul. As we moved through what was proving to be an almost leisurely afternoon, a pleasant looking man appeared in the doorway with a little Muppet of a salt and pepper dog. “Would he like to hold the puppy?” the gentleman asked. Given Ed’s apparent condition there didn’t seem to be any point to it, but we agreed that it certainly couldn’t do any harm. After all, the dog was used to visits with the old or infirm.

Vigi settled the little creature into Ed’s lap and placed one of his hands on its back. Slowly his fingers started to move in widening circles, then he began to stroke it. He continued to pet the ball of fluff for several minutes, a quiet smile beginning to form at the corners of his mouth. Was he remembering his old friend Spooky the cat, who had occupied that very position for nearly twenty years?

Suddenly, he raised his head and looked directly at Vigi. Their eyes met for only a moment but a lifetime of understanding passed between them. Neither spoke a word. Neither had to. They made a connection! To this day, she relives that moment and it makes her feel complete. She calls it her little secret.  ”He was either telling me he was going or asking my permission to leave … but either way I know he was holding on, waiting for me to come.”

It was just about bedtime and we were packing to go home the next morning, when the phone rang. Ed had only a few more minutes … at most a few hours to go. We hurried to his bedside just in time to join the rest of the family, as the turmoil in his mind gave way to the gentleness of his spirit … and the prankster Ed we all remembered escaped to hold hands with his high school sweetheart once again.

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His right hand clung to the wooden arm of a red utility chair, while his left clutched the arm of his wheelchair so tightly the knuckles lost most of their color.  He sat motionless as a statue, white hair spilling across his pink scalp, steely blue eyes locked in a stare toward something invisible on the floor.  Those grasping hands once held the power to construct a home for his family, the strength to keep his loved ones safe, the gentleness to quietly stroke away the fears of his children and the skill to set the type used to print most of the cereal boxes that brightened breakfast tables across America each morning.

Ed was a prankster who added a little top spin to the more typical ‘dry’ Midwestern sense of humor … like greeting holiday guests at the door with scallions sticking out of his ears and an absolute deadpan look on his face! He had grown up in the same town, on the same land as his father and his father before him. His National Geographic collection and slide shows were legendary, as were the wagon rides he gave his kids and grandkids behind the lawn tractor.

He remembered none of that now.  Now the best he could do was hold on.

I hadn’t seen him in four years. Things had changed dramatically and not for the better.  Four years ago Ed was becoming forgetful, sometimes confused, but he was still at home in his easy chair, cat in lap, flirting with his former high school sweetheart of sixty-two years.  Now the cat was dead and the love of his life could no longer care for him. He had taken to wondering off and the very act of eating was becoming a greater challenge with each passing day. “What’s this for?” he would ask pointing at his spoon.

Now he had joined the company of frail, cotton-haired ladies with big black shoes and shriveled, stocking-doll men casting curious glances at familiar strangers.  As his daughter and I repeatedly spoke his name, Ed slowly turned and I could see that merely forgetful had slipped into the mists of forgotten.  His handsome face was beginning to melt like a waxen figure and the life’s light which so brilliantly burned in his eyes was growing dim. Alzheimer’s can do that you know.

“Dad, hi Dad.  Remember me?” his daughter said.  “It’s Vigi and this is my husband, Al.” she continued, pointing at me.  “Sure I remember you but who’s this other guy again?” he replied.  “My husband, Al … remember him?” she asked.  “He looks familiar, I guess.  But I remember you.  Vigi, right?” He got it! Ed frequently confused my wife with our daughter Heidi who is the spitting image of her mother as a girl … that seemed to be a point in time where his mind was still comfortable. He released his grip on the red chair and managed a slight ‘aw shucks’ smile as Vigi straightened his Detroit Tigers cap and kissed his cheek.

Her patience with him was even greater than her patience with me and that’s saying something! I admired her tenderness and instinctive ability to pull Ed back from the cracks into which he would sometimes disappear. I was watching the love I had fallen in love with wrap its magic around her dad, with the warmth of a familiar old sweater. It was the same ability that had made her such a natural mom. And so our visit went, with me being pronounced a “nice guy” but still, at best, only sort of familiar to the man fighting so hard to find the missing fragments of his existence.

All of a sudden, I felt something wet on my cheek and realized I had this huge wad of chewing gum stuck in my throat. Wait a minute. What was going on? Was I crying for him … or was I crying for me ? Whenever life seemed a little rocky, I always told myself that no matter what might happen to my vast array of worldly goods, “I’ll always have my memories … they can never take those away from me.”

Well, they can.

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Life can be a fascinating ride but once you’ve rounded the corner at sixty, with youth only a distant image in your rear view mirror, the road can get a little bumpy and your suspension may not be the only thing in need of repair.

For me, that road led to the hospital more than once during the previous fifteen years but, so far, they were able to catch everything before any serious damage was done — even the cancer. My body had already shown it could do untoward things to me yet there I was, knocking on Social Security’s front door, never having experienced the joys of a colonoscopy. I figured it was about time. As it turned out the test itself was no big deal but the prep, which was a robust exercise in posterior protein spills, used nasty as a starting point and moved straight downhill from there. The important thing, however, was the negative result — no polyps, no questions, see you in five years.  Thanks Doc!

If nature’s cruelest joke is trapping a twenty year old kid inside a quarter million mile body then, to me, it seemed the most Vigi could need might be a renewed inspection sticker. She was the healthy one. Like many people she was, also, apprehensive about the prospect of  ’going through’ a colonoscopy. I assured her there was really nothing to it and, now that I’d been there-done that myself, I dared her to be next. Not to be outdone by someone known as Novocain Norris at the dentist’s office, she accepted my challenge, invented a few new adjectives during her prep and submitted to the test.

I sat in the waiting room half dozing, half listening to my i-Pod, not noticing that the usual half-hour had slipped into an hour and a half. When the doctor finally appeared he said, “She’s just waking up. I’ll take you to see her in a minute. First, let’s stop into my office, we need to talk.” I was never very good at tying knots but, suddenly, there was a perfect half-hitch inside my stomach. When he closed the door behind us, I noticed that the half hitch was now securing a ball of dough roughly the size of a small country.

Pointing to a row of back-lit pictures clipped to his wall he said, “We found a tumor about the size of an orange.  This type of tumor is usually cancerous and we need to get it out of there as soon as possible.  I wanted to discuss it with you alone before we tell Vigi so nobody looks too surprised.” As he explained the options, that dough in my gut began to rise, straining against the knot. I could hear myself asking questions and the doctor answering, as both our voices disappeared down some dark, echoing tunnel.  Then, he led me into the recovery room where this incredible smiling face looked up at me and two outstretched arms pulled me downward for a kiss. The biopsy confirmed cancer and only a few short days passed before she was looking up at me, again, from the gurney.

I had always been the one lying there counting ceiling tiles and Veege was the one standing next to me, looking frightened and helpless. It’s funny — when you’re the one who is down, you know that everything is fine and you’re going to be alright. Hell itself is, actually, reserved for the one who loves you but can only watch and wait. For the first time I fully understood the horror she must have experienced each time I’ve been on the cart! Now I was feeling it and I hated it. I was amazed at the number of impossible scenarios the human mind can conjure up per second.

Just before they wheeled her off, I placed my hand firmly on the doctor’s shoulder, looked him square in the eye and quietly said, “I know you’ll do your best but remember you have two lives in your hands, because I have no reason to be on this earth without her.” He could see I wasn’t kidding and assured me that he understood.  Then, the lady who is the bright center of my universe and her green-gowned entourage disappeared behind the large stainless doors that led to our future.

The good news was they were able to remove all the cancer cleanly.  The less-than-scintillating news was she would need six or seven months of precautionary chemotherapy. As rough as that was, and I was by her side through it all, nothing affected me as deeply or left me feeling so alone as looking down at the lady I love lying on that gurney.

The road has bumped us through the hospital again since then, and let me tell you first hand, you don’t get used to the feeling. Recently I’ve informed several of our friends that, “We don’t mess around with simple colds or flu. We save ourselves for the big stuff like heart disease and cancer.” In fact, I’ll bet neither of us has caught so much as a sniffle in almost ten years — until now. Maybe this is a turning point. ”Gesundheit!”

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I received an eMail from a good friend the other day describing the way he felt as, “Like an urban fire hydrant”. My reply was something along the lines of, “…as long as the kids aren’t unscrewing your plugs and trying to install a sprinkler cap.” He’d been having trouble with his knees lately but this was something different and his new lament started me thinking about a question that I’ve pondered ever since my own magnificent 21 year old bod began to disintegrate exponentially.

When it comes to longevity, who do you figure is better off — the person who was never sick a day in his life or the one who has been through the mill, sporting surgeries and illnesses that would make most folks long for a simple case of swine flu? I don’t really have a definitive answer and by the time I get one, I won’t be able to tell you about it. But I have made a number of observations.

Good health is not an absolute. I’ve talked with people in wheel chairs who considered themselves in excellent health while others, quite vertical, toddle around claiming a personal key to death’s door. One most elderly gent even claimed, “I must be healthy — I got up this morning didn’t I?”

When you reach a certain age, you may not be hear Gabriel’s horn yet but you begin to understand that he only takes requests from the boss — and I’m not talking about Springsteen! Inheritance can get you only so far, whether you’ve been doing laps at the deep end of the gene pool or treading water near the drain in the shallow part. After that, God tried to give us smarts enough to help our own cause with a little common sense, a few tests and a good physician.

When it comes to health, we’ve been educated with an “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality. Most of us only see a doctor if we feel lousy or there’s an arm or leg ready to separate from the main housing. I know people who have no idea what their blood pressure is, don’t know their cholesterol numbers, haven’t experienced the thrill of prep for a colonoscopy and even guys who have never had a simple PSA performed. Well, I did talk my ‘hydrant’ friend into one but to my knowledge he never went back for another test. That’s kind of like walking around feeling fully dressed while wearing only one shoe.

This group has three things in common: They all claim good health [without any basis for it], they think health conscious people are a bunch of hypochondriacs and by the time they finally recognize the riff Angel Gabriel is playing, the last expression on their face will be surprise.

On the other hand there’s another group that has been poked, prodded, sliced, diced, and in many cases, has left one or two hospitals packing less original equipment than they checked in with. I belong to this group. Such experiences have taught me [upon receiving the bill] why doctors wear masks and that the best chance of overcoming any compromising condition is early diagnosis.

It’s a paradox, because having your health make a wrong turn most certainly takes its toll. You’ll never feel better than you did before your wellness went south because, by the time you convalesce, you’re one side or the other of a year older and we all know what that’s about! On the other hand, whatever went on the blink in the first place has been fixed and the principal players are aware of anything else that needs monitoring. “Well-claimers” usually don’t find out about the shaky stuff until later.

In the long run, I figure it’s like bad umpiring in a baseball game — it tends to even out by the last of the ninth.   Still, before you start feeling like an ‘urban fire hydrant’, wouldn’t it be nice to know there’s enough water in your hose and no stray dogs in the ‘hood?

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As I sit here quietly spooning oatmeal onto my bib, I recall a certain piece of wisdom a sales manager gave me when I was still a madcap youth: “When you’ve got ‘em by the short ones, their hearts and minds will soon follow.” I don’t really know if his words ever had the desired effect on my sales technique but, through the years, they have served to remind me how connected everything is to everything else — and how connected all of it is to your head.

This is my twentieth anniversary of life without nicotine-stained fingers. After many years of a habit that made small utility smokestacks blush, I became a non-smoker and have never missed the little poison cylinders or was tempted to fire one up since. The deal is that I didn’t quit — I became! I had tried everything from ‘cold turkey’ to some goofy gadget that I programmed every time I had a cigarette; then it told me when I was allowed to smoke as part of a weaning process. It was sort of like Mom saying “No more milk sweetie,” back in my pre-crumb-crunching days.

Nothing worked until my head was convinced I was a non-smoker. Another profound bit of wisdom I managed to absorb along the way was, “Decide what you are and be that thing”! People would ask me if I was trying to quit and I would say, “No. I don’t smoke”. I took great pride in sitting in the no smoking sections of restaurants and actually developed an allergy to the foul stench! As Fred’s Third Law states, “The mind is like a wife: it’s the one in control whether the rest of the body knows it or not”.

Six months after achieving non-smokerdom, I had my first angioplasty. The doctors didn’t ask me if I smoked — they asked me, “How much” I smoked. My surgery was followed by several weeks of a workout program at the hospital. The attending nurse and I generated some serious sparks about her insistent reference to me as a ‘patient’. In fact, they had signs all over the place serving up little tidbits of advice for those of us grinding it out on the treadmills and exercise bikes: “Heart patients are reminded not to shovel snow”. “Heart patients must be sure to eat a healthy, low fat diet.” I had to get out of there before I got sick.

What I couldn’t get across to ‘Nurse Ratchet’ was that, as far as I was concerned, my patient status ended when I was discharged and returned to work. I now thought of myself as a healthy person and felt that way. To this day my heart and mind are doing just fine but, once again, there’s a sign on the wall that is trying to impose someone else’s reality on my life. It’s Section 1233 of HR 3200, the currently proposed House bill for alleged reform of health care. It reads, “End of Life Counseling”.

As strongly as I object to the possibility of this section’s mandates leading to euthanasia or some coconut in Washington limiting my future, I don’t think in terms of an END approaching and neither do most of the people I know. I have experienced several new beginnings in my life and believe my Senior years will be yet another. It’s the beginning of a time to enjoy the fruits of nearly a half-century of labor — the beginning of a time to share new dreams with Vigi and finally get to spend some quality time together.

I reject the thought that any mere mortal may have me by the ‘short ones’ and try to dictate what I should believe. As everything else is connected to the head, the head is connected back to all the rest and a bad connection may be hazardous to my health — or simply be too much to fit into that little pocket at the bottom of my bib.