colonoscopy

Ooof!  This has become a week from hell.  A few days ago I came down with some kind of stomach bug and haven't really felt very well since.  I don't know what I got ahold of, but it has sure hung in there.  Tenacious bastids!  Microscopic muthafuckas!

It's hard to concentrate on much, work or anything, when your stomach is moaning, groaning, growling and howling, burning, churning and incessantly yearning.  For something.  

To compound the misery, the wife had a routine colonoscopy Friday morning.  If you've ever had one - you know that the preparation can be worse than the actual procedure.  Thursday, she had to quit eating solid food and begin drinking the Nulytely ("new-lightly") laxative, and it made her feel like hell.

That stuff works, though.  They could honestly rename this product, "Colon Blow."

We were told to arrive at the hospital at 7:30am for an 8:00am procedure.  So we arrive at 7:20am, check-in and notice that the waiting room is almost full of about 30 people.  Great.  

So we sit and we sit in the waiting room;  the poor wife has a horrible headache and is starving, and me with the remnants and ruminations (and ruinations) of this stomach bug.  Lovely.  

By 8:30am, they still had not called us up to even start the paperwork!   And there was no doubt that they were calling up people that had arrived AFTER we did.  Don't you hate when that happens?  

The wife goes up to the desk and naturally the woman says in her annoying, nasally, squeaky voice, "You'll be up in just a few minutes."  At least she apologized for being behind schedule.  Said it was all her fault.  Uh, yeah.  Ok. 

8:45am.  Still sitting.  Since we arrived, we are subjected to FOX News on the lone TV in the room.  There's no escaping it.  The room isn't big enough.  I looked closely at the TV and noticed that they had removed the power button, so I saw no way of turning it off that crap.  No one that I can see is even watching it.  This must be an educated crowd.  These patients have a lot of patience.

I asked the woman at the desk if she could change the channel and she said, no, they set the channel in another place.  

I asked, "Well, could you please request them to change the channel?  FOX is horrible!  And no one is watching it."  

"I'll ask them," she says, and I went to sit back down, but it never got changed.  I have to wonder if she was annoyed and pushed the wife down the list, just for spite.  Was she way behind schedule because SHE was watching the TV?!

At about 8:50am, they finally call the wife's name and so she has to go up to the desk again and fill out several forms, sign, and pay the $300 co-pay.  This is the highest co-pay we've ever paid for one of these.  They just keep going higher and higher.  At least we'll get the cash back via our FSA.

Finally at 9:30am, a full 90 minutes AFTER the procedure was supposed to begin, they call her back to get prepped for the colonoscopy.  

I don't get to go back there with her, naturally.  I learn later that they strap her down and give her an IV, which prompts her to start throwing up.  Yes, lovely.  Finally they calm her down, get her sedated and perform the procedure.  

She never has handled anesthesia very well.  It usually makes her sick afterwards, and this time is no exception.  What pisses me off is that she has been seeing this same gastro-enterologist for over 10 years now, and he should KNOW her needs and limitations.

What further bugs me is, after they put her in the recovery room and I am sitting with her for a few minutes (while she's puking a bit), the doc comes in and I tell him that there must be a better way to prepare for a colonoscopy, because her disposition is so ... fragile.  He says calmly, oh yeah, we could do the pills and water.  That's been available for a few years now.

You frikkin' bastard!  There's a less distateful method of prep, and you know how sensitive she is to that crap, and now you tell me it's been available for a few years?!  I felt like punching him.  But I didn't.  

I drove her home and she was semi-conscious the whole way.  She climbed up the stairs and crawled into bed for the next several hours.  

By 6pm, she was finally feeling good enough to come down the stairs and eat a bite.  

What a horrible day.  But, the good news is, only one innocent looking polyp, which he snipped and will biopsy, and just a touch of diverticulosis.  Oh, and a couple of tiny hemarrhoids.  But, "she's doing great," he says.

How many chickens do I owe you, assdoc?