Baring my soul — let alone my bottom — to strangers isn’t something I usually do, but this is important.
Recently, Dr. Wayne Campbell hinted that I have reached the age when it’s time to have a, er … oh, you know, that “procedure” we’re all supposed to have after reaching, um, a certain age.
It wasn’t that I feared the procedure. I just dreaded the preparation the day before.
On Dr. Wayne’s referral, I soon found myself in Dr. David Herf’s waiting room.
He’s seen many a heinie in his professional career: 34,739 of them at North Okaloosa Medical Center alone, to be precise.
I got the figure from his lovely bride, Amy, who writes, “He's not great with faces …. He says, ‘I’ve seen more butts than faces’!”
I’m sharing all this trivial background to soften you up for my description of the procedure.
It was…nothing. Nichts. Nada. I was in and out of NOMC in no time. Thankfully, I slept through it.
More memorable, however, was the prep, which would make a great weight-loss method.
Imagine a whole day of consuming nothing but lemon Jell-O, bouillon and white grape juice. That’s followed by 4 liters that evening of something called GoLytely.
It’s a misnomer.
Golightly was the surname of Holly, a character played by the chic Audrey Hepburn, in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
There is nothing chic about GoLytely. Marge, a jovial nursing supervisor at NOMC, said it should instead be called Blow-It-Out Juice.
Hesitantly, I drank the first cup. Then, every 15 minutes, I had another.
Nothing happened. So I thought I’d be productive on my computer.
GoLytely is sly stuff. It kind of sneaks up on you. Another liter later, while at the computer, there suddenly was an urgent twinge.
You can imagine the rest. (If you can’t, Google “Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927.”)
Mother Nature, like Nurse Marge, has a great sense of humor. I quickly learned that when she says, “Ready, set…” you’d best be enthroned when she says, “Go!”
However, the procedure was effortless and I was soon in Cracker Barrel cozying up to a mammoth Sunrise Sampler, making up for the previous day’s lemon Jell-O and bullion regimen.
At my follow-up appointment, Dr. Herf smiled and said, “See you in five years.”
What joyous words! (Sometimes, alas, he has to deliver less cheery verdicts.)
“The procedure” is really important. It can catch something potentially awful, like colon cancer, in time to remedy it.
I put it off a couple years too many, mainly for the same reason many people put it off: not fear of the procedure, but fear of a night curled up with a jug of Blow-It-Out Juice, which, despite my embellishment, isn’t all that nasty.
Do yourself and your family a favor and make that appointment. It’s called a colonoscopy.
There, I said it. Now go do it.
Approximately 1 in 20 people risk developing colorectal cancer, the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. Colorectal cancer is expected to cause about 50,310 deaths during 2014.
A colonoscopy, a roughly 30-minute test, allows doctors to use a flexible tube to look at the large intestine's inner lining. The test can reveal ulcers, colon polyps, tumors, inflammation or bleeding, according to Web MD. Doctors can take tissue samples, check for cancer and remove abnormal growths.
People should get their first colonoscopy at age 50, according to Johns Hopkins Health Alerts.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at brianh@crestviewbulletin.com, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Getting to the bottom of a common procedure