What I Figured Out at My First Colonoscopy

The best part about it was the sweet biscuits and tea.

Courtesy of Etitto

I like to think I handled the procedure well but I don’t know. I fell asleep moments after I was introduced to my doctor. Struggling to make jokes in Portuguese, he smiled and said, “Okay, you sleep now.” Off I journeyed seconds after he attached the tube to the small, hungry vile hidden from view on the back of my hand.

In the split second I had before a deep, all-consuming sleep sucked me under, I thought, “Man, maybe Michael Jackson was onto something.” I have never slept well in my life — not ever. Many nights as a child were spent lying in bed listening to a house full of snoozing siblings and a wildly-snoring father. Going to bed has always been for a form of punishment and continues to be one, so today’s brief journey on a magic carpet — with my legs pulled up toward my chest and a hole in the back of yellow pajama-like pants — was somewhat of a treat.

But like I said, there was a hole in the back of my pajamas and two women and an old doc standing around me armed with, well, you know, a small hose with a camera attached to it (Okay, enough about that).

“Why are you doing this, do you have suspicions that something is wrong?”