It's that time of year again, the time when a member of the medical profession is paid to shove a camera up my bum. I was on a five-year schedule until the aforementioned medical person found a polyp which he described as almost cancer. He took it out, and apparently in the nick of time, then proposed I switch to a yearly colonoscopy schedule, so here we are.
I've been dreading it - not the insertion of a Kodak Instamatic on a spring, nor even what horrors it might reveal because they're not yet sufficiently real as to induce concern. I'm dreading the preparatory day of fasting and shitting myself, and I'm dreading it because Suprep®, the medication by which I am to cleanse my bowels in readiness, is the worst thing I've ever had in my mouth. The prescription comprises two six fluid ounce bottles of the stuff and costs eighty fucking five fucking dollars even with medical insurance chipping in. You dilute the contents of each bottle with a further ten fluid ounces of water to make a pint of the stuff, then down it in one, or at least as quickly as possible. It's something involving magnesium but the manufacturers have attempted to render it more palatable by flavouring it to resemble Dr. Pepper, a drink which tastes like cheap perfume and reflects nothing found in the natural world, hence its being named after a scientist. I've never liked Dr. Pepper and now, thanks to Suprep®, the smell alone makes me gag; and having paid eighty fucking five fucking dollars for this vile shit, then spent an entire day squirting rusty water into the lavatory bowl, I'm expected to complete this course of treatment by making up a second pint of the stuff with the other bottle.
This time, once I was through to the doctor's office and had made an appointment, I begged for some alternative to Suprep®, and begged at such length that the technician who answered the phone actually seemed to find it a bit weird.
'Okay,' he said. 'You have a couple of other options. There's a similar drink with a different flavour, or a course of tablets. I'll put you down for both, then we'll see which one gets sent to your pharmacy. It all depends on what the medical insurance will pay for.'
Next day, I dropped in at my pharmacy.
'Here you go,' said the young man handing me a paper bag. 'That'll be eighty-five dollars.'
'Eighty fucking five fucking dollars!' I screeched like a figure in an H.M. Bateman cartoon, unable to contain my horror whilst knowing it was hardly the fault of the guy behind the counter. I called my wife to make sure I had the funds, then popped my debit card into the slot. 'You know,' I told the pharmacist, 'I wouldn't mind but I'm sure I could get pretty much the same result eating an out of date curry for about a tenth of the price.'
He seemed sympathetic, amused even.
I got the bag home and discovered it to be something called Clenpiq® which seemed suspiciously similar to Suprep®, thematically speaking, and the promise of it being cranberry flavour wasn't massively reassuring.
'Next time, we'll get you the tablets,' my wife said from the other room. 'I don't care what it costs.'
Clenpiq® wasn't great, but the not-quite six fluid ounce bottles could be downed in one without my being required to turn each into a pint, and the taste wasn't quite so appalling, and was significantly easier to wash away with black coffee and ginger ale.
Monday comes and I remember that the technician to whom I spoke asked that I call back once I've picked up my prescription to let the surgery know which I've been sent. This is so I can sign consent forms or something of the sort, which sounds ominously like it may lead to a patient portal, one of those ingenious online solutions to having an actual human being do the job, and for which I will be expected to create my forty-millionth new password this year.
I call and it's a recorded message.
All of our representatives are busy right now…
I am on hold and in a queue. Weirdly, the queue comprises zero calls awaiting the attention of one of their many representative - according to the automated voice. I'm not sure if this means that I'm first in line, or that there are literally no calls awaiting the attention of a representative because I don't exist. Minutes of low resolution corporate jazz pass before the message repeats. Now there are three people in the queue, then a few more minutes and we're back to zero. It's difficult to work out what's going on, and I give up after thirty minutes.
Next morning I call at 9AM determined to beat the rush.
The voice tells me, 'our office hours are 9AM to—'
'It's nine right now,' I protest.
'No it isn't. It's 8.57AM.'
'Are you seriously telling me to call back in three minutes time?'
'There's no-one here,' she says. 'Not even me,' she could have added without significantly elevating the surrealism of the scenario.
Three minutes later, I call back. The phone is answered by a person with an impenetrable accent, which feels sort of deliberate. I try to tell him that I am simply attempting to pass on a message, a message of just one single brand name comprising seven letters; but he insists I call back later for reasons which aren't entirely clear.
Later, I spend another thirty minutes listening to low resolution corporate jazz whilst pondering over whether or not I really exist before I get through to a human being who is able to take my call.
Next day I fill in the online consent forms.
The day after, I receive umpteen text messages and two phone calls reminding me of my appointment. One of them is a courtesy call regarding insurance details which are wasted on me because I don't understand any of it, and the other is a technician asking whether I received Clenpiq® or whether they sent me the tablet form. I tell him the former, and that I've already spent an hour on hold trying to relay this information to his office, apparently without success. I don't suppose they received the multiple text messages I sent suggesting that they employ someone to answer the fucking phone either.
Diarrhoea day arrives and is relatively painless, just boring because I can't eat anything; then the day of my colonoscopy - early morning which makes a nice change from last time.
I take a book with me. It's actually one of my own books which I'm in the middle of proofreading prior to vain attempts to fool strangers into buying the thing. This time last year I spent a couple of hours hooked up to an IV drip waiting for the doctor, so I figured I should make use of the time. The technicians are amused that I'm reading my own book. One of them asks what a book is in jocular fashion. They seem like a decent bunch of people.
'Is this morphine?' I ask as the general anaesthetic is added to my drip. Morphine is the one I've heard of, even though I'm not actually sure it can be used as an anaesthetic. It turns out to be Propofol, which I've never heard of. I feel suddenly warm and dark, as though I'm within a cave looking out.
'I think it's working,' I say.
I wake. It's been over for ten minutes. About half an hour has passed and my slumber has been deep and powerful. They removed one tiny polyp, nothing to worry about and I'm probably good to leave it for another five years, by which time I'll be in my sixties. I could have lived without a full hour of low resolution corporate jazz, but otherwise I came through and it feels great.
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