Because we have a history of Bowel cancer in my family (my old man died from it) and now that I've reached a certain age I need to get checked out every couple of years. It involves (mainly) having a colonoscopy which is essentially someone sticking a video camera up your bum and looking for anything suspicious in your lower intestines (or colon). My first one was today and I'm not afraid to admit, I was a little apprehensive!
The preparation is hideous in that you have to not eat fibre for the preceding week, then nothing at all for 24 hours before, in addition to drinking seemingly litres, of some industrial strength laxative (which tastes foul!) to clear out anything that might obscure the view, and boy does that stuff work well, you can't be more than 10 yards from the bog for ages!
Anyway, once the procedure was over, I was relieved on two fronts. Firstly (and most importantly) I was clear, nothing nasty lurking in there at the moment! Secondly, I opted not to have any drugs to sedate me during the procedure. You can have Pethidine and/or Entonox, which relaxes you to the point of not really being aware of what's going on but that's something I've had before for a particularly messy molar tooth extraction and it wiped me out for the following day (think the worst hangover ever!).
I was lucky, my bowels must be fairly straight or something but I felt perfectly fine throughout the whole thing and had a great science oriented conversation with the doctor, in fact, I was glued to the monitor just above my head, watching every twist and turn and asking loads of questions. It was fascinating, and I must say that my bowels looked in really good nick (confirmed by the doc)! Nice and pink and not a hint of all the Bordeaux wine that's passed through them over the last 40 years! (I was a little worried about that) Anyway, all good for another couple of years and no drug hangover to contend with, a good day!
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