I try to focus on the good things about growing older, but I can’t think of anything positive to say about a colonoscopy.  I don’t know what I was thinking when I scheduled it so close to Christmas.  Maybe I thought that work would be quieting down and that I could skip a day at the office without missing much.

I didn’t remember that my healthy diet would be turned upside down for five days. (Didn’t it used to be three days?)  It seems that everything that is good to eat is verboten.  What’s worse is that at holiday parties, foods with nuts and seeds and other forbidden ingredients prevail. 

I haven’t had canned peaches or any canned fruit since I was a kid, but at least yogurt with canned peaches is better than yogurt without.  That was my pre-C lunch for four days.  On the fifth (or liquid-diet) day, lunch was my first-ever glass of Gatorade which actually isn’t all that bad.

But can’t someone invent a colonoscopy preparation that doesn’t taste so awful?  Or that doesn’t make you shiver?

It’s all behind me now—so-to-speak.  And miracle of miracles, no polyps—which means I get to go five years before I repeat all this fun.

I do admire the nurses and doctors who respond to us grumpy, starving colonoscopy patients with a cheerful outlook and lots of warm blankets.

They deserve a Merry Christmas.