This pic is from Fletch, one of the greatest comedies of our time. It led me to my husband, because after watching Fletch, we DTRed (define the relationship) and decided to date. Fletch is our genesis, and our marriage is pretty much based on Fletch quotes. And Jesus.
Yesterday, I had the deep, dark privilege of experiencing my first colonoscopy.
For all of you who are thinking, “Melanie, aren’t you too young to be having a colonoscopy?” YES, a thousand times, YES. I am sooo too young for this. For shiz. Thank you for thinking so.
I actually had a camera shoved both up and down, checking out my insides from my throat down to my, well, just down. Today, I sound a little scratchy-throated, like Phoebe on Friends when she catches the cold and has a sexy singing voice. “My sticky shoe…don’t get stuck on youuuu.”
So, if you know me, you have to know how difficult it was for me to be a grown-up about a doctor sticking a camera up my butt. Because I’m too young for this, and also, poop jokes are always, always funny.
At the appointment before the procedure, as my doctor is explaining the pre-op rigorous cleanse:
My doc: You’re gonna poop your brains out.
Me: I like a doctor who says “poop your brains out.”
My doc: It’s a technical term.
He was right. I did. Ana doesn’t understand American idioms yet, so when I told her that Mommy pooped her brains out, she got a concerned look on her face. “Mommy, waht ees thees “poop your brains out? Your brain? Poop out?”
To while away the cleansing hours, I downloaded Divergent to my iPad Kindle because I want to see the movie but can’t break my rule of “book first.” Oh. People. How have I not read this yet? I finished it by 2am, downed the rest of my poo-poo elixir, and downloaded the second book in the series, Insurgent. I read for another couple of hours, finally crashed for a few hours, then headed to the hospital.
Apparently, the cleanse wasn’t over, because as I was checking in, I tossed my insurance card at the woman and groaned, “Bathroom?” She pointed the way and I took off.
Okay.
They have a one-holer for an entire floor of colonoscopy patients. Who designed this building?!?
I waited, and I waited, and waited waited waited.
It all worked out, and I’m mentally awarding myself a medal for not pooping my pants.
While I waited in the lobby for them to call me back, I kept reading, and I was so into it that when they called my name, I startled, stood up too fast, and clocked myself in the head with my iPad. Hard. I was crying and laughing at myself and I know the whole waiting room thought I was distraught about the colonoscopy.
I asked if I could just bring my iPad back with me. I read up until it was time to knock me out, then they stuck the iPad under the gurney. The anesthesiologist and I were talking about Divergent as he prepped me. Nerd alert.
I wasn’t awake for the next part, but while I was experiencing the best sleep of my life, apparently something extremely cool happened.
And of course, of course, because it’s me, somehow God would find a way to make Himself known through my colon.
Apparently, when they, um, began the procedure, they saw my tattoo, Psalm 139, which is kinda near the access point, on my lower back. (If anyone says “tramp stamp” I will climb through this computer and hurt you.;) They were asking what it meant, and one of the surgeons, who’s a Christian, pulled out her Bible and read Psalm 139 to everyone in the room while they were, um, you know, colonoscopying me.
So everyone was hearing about how much God knows us intimately and made us wonderfully. When I prayed, “God, use all of me for Your glory,” He took me up on that. All of me, even my small intestine.
See? Between this and reading Divergent, it just makes me want to go out and get a bunch more tattoos. (Calm down, Mom. I don’t have time right now anyway.)
When I woke up, I was pretty out of it, but thankfully Alex has filled me in about the next part.
Nurse: You need to pass gas, honey.
Me: I love to fart. Farting is my favorite. Fart fart fart.
Then my doctor came in to talk to me and as he was explaining stuff that I don’t remember, according to Alex, I cut him off and asked, “Can I go back to farting now?”
Maybe anesthesia brings out my true nature.
I got home, crawled in bed, finished Insurgent, and downloaded the third one, Allegiant. I never get a chance to read three books in two days, so really, a colonoscopy is kinda like a vacation, except with lots of poo and the freedom to fart in front of anyone.
I memorized this Psalm to keep me calm during my first MRI, and I love that it’s becoming a theme for my medical procedures:
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
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