All time awful

Ok before I start recanting the nasty details of my first ever colonoscopy let me say upfront that combining a colonscopy prep routine while you are in the middle of battling an unpleasant cold is not recommended.  Even now, 6 hours clear of the procedure I feel terrible with no energy and chills.

So the first part of the prep on Thursday has to do with what you are consuming which is basically liquid items with some jello mixed in.  I thought the food restriction would be a real PIA but maybe because of my cold, I didn’t really miss it.  In fact I only ate about half of what Cindy packed for me.  Maybe the other reason is vegetable broth is very bland and unappealing.

So I was feeling pretty rotten most of the day, mostly from the cold.  I wound up leaving the office a couple hours early so I could be in misery at home.  When I got home I still didn’t eat anything else, I just had no appetite.  Cindy was teaching a class Thursday night so I got to initiate the consumption of my first dose of Suprep by myself which was a good thing.

You take the contents of the bottle and pour it into a cup.  You then fill the cup to a 16 ounce fill line with water.  After you get it down you have to consume another 32 ounces of water within an hour.

So before I took my first swig I smelled the solution and it didn’t seem that bad, sort of resembling cough medicine.  I didn’t expect this to be a huge deal so I set my cup by my PC and continued playing WoW. Well when I took the first sip I instantly started gagging, despite trying to hold my breath.  It was so bad.  It doesn’t taste at all as it smells, the worst part of it being the strong saltiness you get smacked in the face with.  All of a sudden I realized this was going to be more difficult that I anticipated.

It probably took me about 10 minutes to choke it down, disgusting sip after sip.  I could not believe just how bad it tasted, likely the worst tasting thing that has ever been in my mouth.  After finishing the last of it I wasted no time drinking the additional water, I was desperately trying to erase the Suprep taste from my mouth.

So the fireworks began in roughly a half hour.  They went on forever with me not finishing up my last bathroom trip until after 9:30.  Cindy tried to console me as much as she could but I was just miserable and exhausted.  I laid on the love seat most of the night like I was in a coma.  I just had no energy at all.  The idea of setting the alarm at 5AM to do another round of Suprep was on my mind heavily.  It was much worse anxiety this time because I knew just how awful it was.

I fell asleep pretty quickly but then found myself awake around 2AM for some reason, it took me around an hour to fall back asleep, contributing to the exhaustion I was already feeling.  When the alarm went off I didn’t waste much time, knowing the prep needed to be completed sooner rather than later.  I decided to pull the GoPro out so the world could see the joy of choking down Suprep.  I hoped I could shotgun it faster this time to end the misery but it still took at least a half dozen, gag filled swallows until I got it down. It was simply miserable.

So when I finally got the last swallow down I quickly drank the additional water to rinse out the taste as much as possible.  Just like last night, about 30 minutes later the bathroom trips began but they eventually turned into nothing but clear yellow fluid.  The force and amount of substance that Suprep causes again was something I never had experienced before.  While I was waiting for it to flow through my body I again passed out on the sofas, feeling unable to do anything that required me to be upright. I spent the time watching the US gold medal curling match that I had on the DVR.  To be honest, even now, punching in this blog entry feels like a lot of work.  I would rather be laying down. Chills and exhaustion cut me off at the knees.

So again the bathroom trips lingered longer than I hoped.  I even had to do one more pitstop and the endo center.  Cindy drove me there and it was a good thing.  I reclined in the passenger seat with my eyes closed most of the time.  Once we got to the office I was surrounded by people that almost exclusively looked two decades older than me.  I just wanted it all to be over with.  Even though I knew I was in the home stretch I just felt too lousy to care.

So they took me back to the staging area.  I stripped naked and put on the covers next to nothing hospital gown.  As I got my IV inserted, the nurse was trying to engage me in conversations but I was too tired to say much more than a few words.  I laid there with my eyes closed until the the anesthesia nurse came in.  She rolled me back to the procedure room where loud rock n roll was playing.  My endo doctor is a very laid back, and cool dude.

So I was instructed to lay on my left side.  Once the sleep juice started flowing I was out in what felt like less than 30 seconds.  The next thing I remembered was a nurse talking to me in the recovery room and Cindy walking towards me, looking relieved.  It felt good to be awake.  I was not thrilled however when the nurse said they did cut out a polyp but that isn’t that unusual.  When the doc showed up the picture was a little less great.  He said the polyp was half decent in size and this is exactly why proactive screenings are a great idea.  They have to send out the polyp for testing but he said that I really should be looking at getting a colonoscopy every three years instead of the ten that is normal if they find nothing.  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all based on what I just had been through but hey I’m ok for now.

After the procedure Cindy took me to Burgerfi, a place I never checked out.  I had a veggie quinoa burger that was great.  It felt good to get some real food in my system.  I felt like I was pepping up while eating but once we got home I was back to feeling simply exhausted.  I laid in bed and closed my eyes for a couple hours.  Like I said, even now I just feel wasted.  I am hoping a solid night of sleep will begin to lift this fog of illness and food deprivation.  It’s weird, even after eating lunch I have no appetite, I’ve just been drinking water all afternoon.

So there you have it, I survived the colonoscopy.  I hope my test results are favorable because having to repeat that process three times a decade would suck, badly.

I hope my energy level returns so we can have a psuedo normal weekend.  Right now any chore that pops into my head gets immediately dismissed as requiring too much energy.