This post really has nothing to do with ttc, but it is a part of my health, so I think it's a good idea to include it for anyone who may be interested.
First of all, any rumors you've heard about the "prep" being the worst part?
ALL TRUE.
Monday night I went to bed, knowing I wouldn't be eating any solid food for almost 48 hours, which seems like an eternity when you're just getting started.
Tuesday I was on a clear liquid diet. This meant that I ate some Jell-O I'd made the night before (a lemon/orange layered one) and drank a lot of soda.
Anything red or purple was off limits but I was told specifically that Mountain Dew and Coke were okay. I usually limit myself to one Dew/day, but since it was tasty and allowed I had 3. And a lot of water.
At 6pm, my prep began. "Prep" is a polite way of saying I needed to liquify everything in my bowels so they would be squeaky clean on the inside so my gastroenterologist could see every nook and cranny.
The medicine I was given is a new version. In fact, it was so new the pharmacy had to order it. So if this is different than what you've done, don't worry--there's more than one way to clean out those insides!
Mine started with a 6 ounce brown bottle of liquid that had a hint of a grape flavor but overall was really disgusting. I had to dilute it with 10 ounces of water then drink it all within 45 minutes but no faster than 20 minutes.
Had I been able to just chug it, it might not have been so bad. This particular medicine left me nauseated almost from the get go, so getting it all down in 45 minutes proved more challenging than I'd expected. About 10 minutes after I finished it, the first wave hit.
And for about 4 hours they just kept coming. I needed to drink another 32 ounces of water at a minimum. I knew that dehydration could be a problem, so I just kept drinking, even though there was a definite "in one end, out the other" correlation.
For those of you who have never experienced bowel movement liquefaction without a GI bug, it is a unique experience! It wasn't at all painful; certainly no cramping. Wet wipes were needed because toilet paper gets really irritating when used every 15 minutes, but all in all it wasn't that bad.
My husband chose to sleep in the basement, knowing that my getting out of bed frequently through the night would keep him up.
In the end I think I only got up twice, which is actually pretty normal for me.
Wednesday morning I began the second part of the prep. This time I had a one liter jug that had a flavor pack of my choosing to add to it. I chose two packs, the lemon-lime and the pineapple. This stuff didn't tasted as bad and I could chug it. 16 ounces at a time every 20 minutes until it was gone.
It took a little over an hour to finish. I had to cut off all liquid consumption by 8:15 for anesthesia purposes so right before the cut off, I downed another 24 ounces of water.
At one point my 7 year old asked me what if felt like. My honest TMI response was, "Like I'm peeing out my butt". And that is probably the best description of what was going on. It didn't hurt, didn't smell, and the color was just about right, too.
We checked in to the surgical center right on time and I was given an IV and took the opportunity to use the bathroom (again) before they wheeled me back.
The IV was put in my left wrist and the blood pressure cuff was on my right arm. Everything was going smoothly until they asked me to turn onto my left side.
That's when the flashback started. That exact position, complete with the location of the IV and cuff, was how I labored with Jackson up until about 15 seconds before his birth.
I had to breath deeply and stay calm. The anesthesiologist recognized my distress and gave me a look, just as he pumped the meds into my IV. I knew they were entering because it STUNG. Without asking, I explained that this was the position I was in right until my son was stillborn 7 weeks ago.
The last words I heard were, "I'm so sorry" as I drifted off to sleep. I relived my labor in my sleep, but with a different ending. It seemed to have gone way too fast when they woke me up. I'm not sure who told me, but I was told they'd found a 2 mm polyp and removed it and it was being sent off for biopsy. The report I was given actually says there were 2 polyps removed and that I would need a repeat 5 years from now.
And I have pictures, too.
As is custom, we had Wendy's for lunch. It stayed with me pretty well. The left over tortellini soup, however, went straight through me and caused me some significant distress for several hours. By then everything was raw and I was very uncomfortable. Before going to sleep, I had two slices of toast, hoping that could slow things down a little.
I slept straight through until 4:50 this morning, which is really unusual for me. I'm back to normal today, which is really nice.
The current guidelines for women for a colonoscopy is to get your first at the age of 50. I am over 15 years younger than that, but it's clear that the recommendation from my sister's doctor to have all her siblings checked was a good one.
I have no idea what those two polyps could have done between now and 15 years from now. Some polyps don't do anything, according to my gastroenterologist, but some are the beginnings of colon cancer and there's no way to tell which kind is which until they're biopsied, so they are removed on site.
This procedure could easily have saved my life in the long run. You can bet that having been through this once, I know what to expect and will be diligent about getting checked every 5 years from here on out.
My life is too precious for me to ignore the recommendation.
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