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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I finally solved one of life’s little mysteries last Saturday, while loitering in the middle of our kitchen. “What are you doing?” Vigi asked quietly, as I stood there sort of swaying like a new calf or an old dog. “I came in here for something, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what the heck it was!” replied a voice that sounded incredibly like mine. If there is even a smidgen of gray in your hair, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You send yourself on a mission. It’s not like going to, say, Shanghai or something. Often it’s just an excursion into the next room … but once you get there, the rest of the directive is obscured by something I call “Brain Fog.” It’s from the Latin, brainus foggus, which loosely translated means “Wait, I knew that a minute ago.”

For the longest time I’ve been puzzled by why it takes me longer to do things now than it used to.  There are still sixty seconds in a minute, right? Suddenly, Saturday afternoon, lights flashed and trumpets blared! It was so simple. When I was a kid, I just did stuff. When I was finished, I kept going and did more stuff. There were no limits! Now, I spend half my time trying to figure out where I put something or what I’m doing somewhere … then spend the other half working at a speed approaching molasses on Prozac, instead of my former legendary warp factor nine. Think of it in terms of throwing a fastball over the plate: When you’re younger you just rifle it in to a catcher. Now you toss, toddle sixty feet six inches, change gloves and catch your own pitch, on one bounce!

The good news is that such episodes are temporary, and a quick retrace of my steps usually causes the tumblers in my head to click into place. Failing that, sometimes just sitting down hard can jog the missing debris down to my primary thought center. The bad news is that it all chews up valuable time in a changing world where minutes seem to perceptibly have fewer and fewer seconds!

By the way, the first cousin of “Brain Fog” is “Mind Vapor” … from the Latin, vaporus mentalus, which is the complete disappearance of a thought or idea in mid-sentence. You don’t have to travel at all to trigger this one. I’ve discovered that retracing words in a conversation can be even tougher than retracing steps into a room … especially once I realized no one was actually listening, including me! Like my mission directive the missing piece is usually retrieved, although sometimes not right away. Veege is frequently puzzled when I pipe up with something like, “Hey, remember when I was telling you about … (fill in topic) ?” Of course, not only doesn’t she remember the conversation but she can’t figure how I don’t know where I put my glasses five minutes ago, yet I can suddenly remember exquisite detail from an incomplete conversation last Tuesday!

If these tendencies toward fog and vaporization continue, it shouldn’t be long before I can start thinning out my extensive DVD collection. In a few short years, we’ll only need to keep a couple of discs around … watch a movie and it’s brand new again by tomorrow!

Most young people can’t really apply these little inconveniences to themselves. After all, it’s not their own reflections they see in the fun house mirror. Not yet. The first gray hair or squint line may herald some reality for newly christened middle-agers, but the idea of operating at less than light speed is beyond imagination. At thirty or forty,  when the world is at your feet and you’re ninety mile-an-hour fastball is still popping the catcher’s glove, it’s impossible to picture a time when just finding the plate may occupy a significant portion of the day. That’s something that only happens to … old people.

The next time I run into some multi-tasking lightening rod who acts like he has all the answers or thinks older folks are kind of funny, my tolerance will be increased a hundred fold … because not only am I the one who understands most of the questions, but I know who’s going to have the last laugh! I hope I can remember that.

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

It was a perfect dive … arms fully extended, head down and four inches of rock-hard ice rising to meet me at warp speed! The emergency room doctor later called it a “Superman”, although my instant replay indicates it must have looked more like an Elmer Fudd. I bruised several ribs and possibly cracked two of them, just to enhance the effect. But th-thea the-thea that’s not all folks!

Since my arms were occupied with a death grip on my upper torso, Vigi went outside to chip some ‘winter mix’ off the windshield so we could find our way to the hospital … and, not to be outdone, she successfully executed a back flip on the same slippery, snow dusted surface. Her L4 vertebra is now attempting to pass L5 like a couple of NASCAR drivers closing on the finish line at Daytona. That was more than a month ago and we’re still nursing our bruised, battered bones. Last night as we poured ourselves into our respective couch corners she asked, “Is this what old age is going to be like?”

Since Veege is a pretty upbeat person, I know when she asks a question like that it usually isn’t rhetorical. I’ve never been known for a loss of words, so the resounding silence that enveloped the room echoed even louder, eliciting both a slightly arched eyebrow and an actual pause in her knitting. It’s amazing how much can stampede across your mind’s hi-def widescreen in only a few short seconds.

I remembered a lean teen standing shirtless in front of the mirror, flexing his muscles and vainly admiring bulges that I eventually learned were called names like pecs and abs. During my middle years, I didn’t have to take my shirt off to see that many of those bulges had shifted somewhat and now stood before the looking glass calling them ‘contours’ and saying things like, “Not bad, not bad.” While I still have bulges, they have completely reconfigured themselves in both geometry and geography. None of them have names anymore.

Not long ago, in the process of greeting the new day, I stumbled past the bathroom mirror and noticed an older silvery-bearded gent giving me a curious once over. The landscape between his right and left ears was dominated by a field of skin, and I wondered who had been trying to make waffles on the side of his face that only moments before had been nestled into a properly punched pillow. Thankfully, performing my morning toilette is the only time I have no choice but to stand toe-to-toe with the updated ‘Me’ … the rest of the day I try to avoid all reflective surfaces of any kind.

As those silent seconds passed, with my widescreen now beginning to flicker, the scene changed and a devilish little voice inside my head began whispering about how food used to taste better, things lasted longer and a buck stretched all the way from necessity through desire with a little left over for saving. It reminded me of 5¢ chocolate bars that filled out their generous wrappers and didn’t taste like something you’d light on fire atop a birthday cake; how steak was so succulent and tender it made you feel as if the cow had given it up willingly … and when stuff broke, you were able to fix it instead of throwing it away. Life just used to seem less complicated. Maybe being more energetic and less brittle had something to do with it.

Then, as I looked over at my bride, her eyebrow had returned to its normal down and locked position, the yarn resumed its flight around the needles, and for some reason I began thinking about our wedding vows. “For richer or poorer,” we had promised. We’d been fortunate enough to struggle ourselves up to a comfortable middle point over the years. Where adversity sometimes pulls people apart, it has always bound us closer together with a kind of “you and me against the world” attitude.  “In sickness and in health.” Well, like most people edging closer to the ‘getting-off’ place than the ‘getting-on’, we’ve had our share of door number one in the past few years. The thing is, I couldn’t remember anything about injuries anywhere on the list … certainly nothing about ice-diving.

Finally, trying to lighten the moment with something clever I offered, “Hey kid, like it or not these are the NEW good old days! If we’re going to have any ‘golden years’, I’d better buy a bucket of paint!” She didn’t seem particularly amused … didn’t even look like she thought it was cute. As if peering at me over an invisible pair of reading glasses, she sighed that sigh that women sigh [like when you spill something] and adjusted the stack of pillows supporting her back.

With one hand on my ribs, the other on the T.V. remote and Vigi’s question neatly tucked away in a corner of my cranium, we settled back to resume our evening secure in the knowledge that “for better or for worse,” we had each other … and a large bottle of Tylenol at the ready.

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

He leaned in close so only the two of us could hear and said, “God loves you.” “I know He does,” I replied to the surgeon. “No, I mean He REALLY loves you!” the surgeon insisted. “After seeing what we just had to fix, I don’t know why you didn’t have a major coronary … but you didn’t, so He must love you a lot!” That got my attention. I mean, it REALLY got my attention. Up until then, I had taken to celebrating various anniversaries of my 29th birthday. The anniversary before my doctor’s chilling observation was my 19th and final such celebration.

People are funny about age. When they’re under 21, they count the half year: “He’s 1-1/2.” “I’m 16-1/2.” Between 21 and roughly 75, whatever the whole number indicates is usually offered at face value: “I’m 51.” After that, it’s back to emphasizing the half year: “I’m 83-1/2.” How someone treats his own birthday is a personal matter. How someone else treats it can be a horse of a different stripe.

High on my list of irritants is the way in which some well-meaning yahoo hangs a number on you, when he decides you’re moorings have come loose and you’re drifting so far from shore that he simply must announce to the world: “He’s 97-1/2 years YOUNG!” or even worse, addresses you as “Young fellow.” These last two are the blood pressure boosting parents of all insults to a mature person who has devoured huge chunks of life, and earned at least a modicum of respect for enduring the experience. It may come as a shock to many young whippersnappers who have spent far too much time sitting around snapping their young whippers … but old people know that they’re old! Believe me, they actually do.

During that 21 to 75 period, I see most people regarding birthdays as a necessary inconvenience, sometimes to the point of actual rejection … like the silliness of celebrating birthday anniversaries instead of coming clean on the total. A couple of my favorite denial clichés are, “Oh, it’s just a number,” or “You’re as young as you feel.” Heck, some days I feel about a hundred seventy-five! Does that mean I’m walking in Moses’ footprints? It’s amazing how fast birthday-bashing can come to a screeching, grinding halt once you’ve stood eye-to-eye with your own mortality.

Kids are bulletproof, indestructible and even immortal. They’re never going to get old and prune up like those “L” shaped relics they see chugging along, clutching their walkers or canes. Sadly, some of them don’t. The concept of disease is an abstract to a majority of young people … and death is something that only knocks on the other guy’s door. Maybe that’s why it’s mostly the young who go off to war.

When the team manager moved me from second base to first, I knew I had lost a step. Nobody had to tell me I wasn’t moving to my left fast enough to stop some of those grounders anymore. At the tender age of 34, when I allowed my wife [in another life] to convince me to stop playing ball altogether, I realized I probably lost more than just a step. That was about the time I formulated my “Nature’s Cruelest Joke” philosophy,  having to do with a 20 year old kid being trapped in a 200,000 mile body … only back then, as it turned out, there were only about 75,000 miles on it.

My good friend Bill never fails to send me a greeting every January 29th wishing me a “Happy Born Day.” I like the gentle sound of that wish … and it offers those still in denial a little wiggle room. As for me? Ever since Dr. Wang’s attention-getting surgical suite pronouncement my attitude has become, “Lord, bring me as many of these things as you can.” I have all of eternity to enjoy eternity and still too much I want to do right here!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

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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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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