Pine Nuts with McAvoy Layne: A short history of colonoscopy
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Mon, 04/27/2020 - 2:57pm
We all remember our first, our first love, our first kiss, our first colonoscopy. The procedure was developed in 1969, but was overshadowed by the moon landing. There were no headlines, "Colonoscopy Arrives! What is it? Don't ask."
Dr. Samuel Johnson told us: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
I submit the same can be said as it relates to a colonoscopy.
First there is the euphemistically named, "Prep Kit," that magical solution of sodium sulfate and magnesium that tastes like rat poison, that you take the night before the colonoscopy.
Just when you start to think your Prep Kit is not working, and you start dialing the phone to ask for your money back, well, Loma Prieta comes to mind. My Prep Kit came equipped with industrial strength restraining straps that really did come in handy.
Then there is the procedure itself. I remember my lady doctor telling me, "Try to relax." The rejoinder that came to my mind I lived to regret, as I said, “That’s an oxymoron. You can’t try to relax.” Which prompted her to say, without any sugar in her voice to speak of, “You are not here to give me an English lecture. You are here to get a colonoscopy.”
Well she had the advantage of me there, and the next thing I knew, though I'm not a religious man, I found myself calling on Jesus, Joseph and Mary. I might have even reached out to the Holy Ghost — a first for me.
Before reporting back to my doctor for my results, I threw some salt over my shoulder for luck and was fully prepared to learn that the Tabasco I had been living on for thirty years to make tolerable the death-defying food I had been consuming, had corroded my clockworks, so to speak, to the point where I would need to call the Rooter Man to make things right again, if that was even possible.
But as good fortune would have it, she told me I was clean as a whistle.
Then, once again, I was seized with a spasm of smartassedness, which I hate about myself but can never seem to contain, and I inquired, “So, how did my tonsils look, anyways?” And if that were not sophomoric enough, I added, "My older brother bet me $5 you would discover a miniature cranium, resembling mine."
She smiled, pointed to the door, and offered, “You can go now.”
Don't be like me. I fall down on the bathroom floor when I look in the mirror and see I have chapped lips. Then I crawl to the phone and call my mother.
No, a colonoscopy can save your life. Once we have kicked the coronavirus, pick up the phone, place the call, make the appointment, and don't be a cry baby like me.
And this is where our short history of colonoscopy comes to a close.
— For more than 30 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”
