Trust the Doctor

2010_10_05 Trust the Doctor
Dear Charlie,
Yesterday I talked to several guys who have experienced colonoscopies multiple times. Two of the fellows at the pool hall where I play have racked up several due to the fact their parents died of colon cancer so they and return every three years for another one. My doctor wants me to do the same thing. I don’t think I have ever objected to the procedure as strongly as you seemed to, although I did feel there had to be a damn good reason to do it, like blood in the stool. One persuasive factor for me, besides my age and simple curiosity about a colon that had never been cleaned out in three quarters century of use and abuse, was the doctor I was assigned after entering the hospital through the ER. His name was Dr. Ayaaz Ismail, originally from Zimbabwe, where he went to Med School, plus he went to Yale Med School and put in a few years at a hospital in New Haven. He was Semitic in appearance, short, trim, handsome, and very well spoken. He had a great bedside manner that was easy to respond to. My guess would be he came from the upper classes in his Zimbabwe; he was smooth, elegant and self-assured. After 14 years of experience with doctors and other medical people I have developed a keen instinct on whom I can trust and who will do right by me. I felt good about Dr. Ishmail right away. When he suggested I undergo the procedure I was willing to go with him and in retrospect I am glad I did. The fact we didn’t discover the cause of the severe abdominal pain which brought me to the ER in the first place seems part of the gamble you undertake with any medical procedure. I did come away with the knowledge that my colon was in very good shape, which is something I hadn’t had before.
Of course my experience was different from the other people I talked to because mine took place under emergency conditions; that added more stress and discomfort as I was hooked up to two IVs at the same time, which restricted my movement. I sat on three different commodes while various people were in and out of my room while I defecated uncontrollably. The whole thing was public and there was nothing I could do about it. Doing the purge at home would be a whole other experience. My vascular surgeon, Dr. Scott Berman, dropped in to see me and he stopped in his tracks when he saw me on a commode in the middle of the room. “Oh,” he said,” I didn’t know you were so indisposed.” But he did manage to tell me he had seen the CT-Scans they had taken not long after I entered the hospital and the stent graph and aneurysm looked good and were not involved in the current situation.
Have you had a colonoscopy? The actual procedure is a breeze compared to the prep that for me was a long hellacious experience. When they go up your five feet of your colon they put you in a twilight state so you can be still but yet can come out of it quickly. The procedure took 30 minutes while the prep took 10 hours. I was given a gallon of liquid called “Go-Lightly.” I was supposed to consume the entire gallon in two phases, with a little sleep in between. At one point in the first phase I sat on the john for 3 hours which was tough on my butt and knees, as you might imagine. The second phase was the easier of the two—I also cheated by pouring out about 12 Oz of the Go-Lightly down the drain. I knew I was cleaned out and enough was enough.
At the end of the procedure Dr. Ayaaz leaned over me and told me everything looked good; there was no cancer, only one polyp he removed and in general the colon was in a good state of health, which was gratifying news and certainly justified having the procedure done. However, the colitis he suspected as the cause of the pain was not present so the mystery remained unsolved. He did give me 10 photos of my clean colon, all pink and glowingly clean. I was home by dinner time on Friday night. I took it easy at dinner, eating only scrambled eggs and soup.
Later amigo,
JWP