Gray water

So a few months back I went to the doctor and he looked at me with a furrowed brow and said I needed a colonoscopy.

A few weeks after that another doctor looked at me and said with a smile, “You need your gallbladder out. And a colonoscopy. We’ll do both at the same time.” I didn’t argue. I’d had a gut ache for a solid three months and was glad to be rid of it. I would have dug that gallbladder out with a spoon if I could.

So last week the day came I had to prep for the colonoscopy by drinking this special elixir, which tastes like really bad lemonade, in two separate doses, a quart each.

“How long does this stuff take?” I asked my wife as I chugged the first dose. She has already had a colonoscopy and her gall bladder out, though not at the same time.

“What time is it?” she smiled. My eyes grew wide as I raced toward the bathroom.

“Oh my!” I said.

Talk about a cleansing. Supper shot out like a cannon in 10 seconds. Then a wad of gum from the 7th grade. A nest of fishing line. A penny. My grandmother’s long lost wedding ring.

STOOL SHOULD BE CLEAR, the directions demanded.

How about gray? I thought.

They say you can drink clear soda and other clear liquids like clear chicken broth. But I stuck to tea, water and white grape juice, which isn’t really white. It’s light brown, which apparently is OK.

Then at midnight, I couldn’t drink anything at all.

Immediately I became thirsty.

The next morning I went under the proverbial knife. My wife dropped me off at the hospital and nurses poked and prodded me

and asked a lot of questions. I don’t recall most of them and I don’t recall the answers, either. I even got a neck massage from a nice fella with huge hands.

I was shooting the breeze with the nurse about camera gear when the next thing I know I’m in recovery with four little holes in my abdomen. The nurse brought me some ice in a cup and I glommed it down like I just walked across 50 miles of desert.

I went into the hospital at 8:30 a.m. and was walking around the block of my house by about 12:30 p.m., sans gallbladder and with a super clean colon. The docs and nurses at Logan Health Whitefish did a bang-up job.

I wasn’t exactly feeling spry, but I must admit, a wisdom tooth extraction is more painful.

As I write this the four little holes in my stomach are itchy and the guts are still a little wobbly in the literal sense. When I walk they feel like they’re wobbling around in there. But every day it gets a little better.

Perhaps that old gum was holding things together…