Don’t worry, I won’t give you the gory details, but:
WHAT’S NOT FUN ABOUT A SIGMOID ENDOSCOPY…
- Er, well, there’s the obvious. Like, those alien abduction reportees? They picked a doozy of a procedure for their imaginary aliens to perform on them. (1)
- Various other minor side effects afterward, like, er, well, scentless flatulence (2) and mild discomfort from being pumped full of air.
WHAT CAN BE FUN ABOUT A SIGMOID ENDOSCOPY…
- Cheap, legal narcotics. I was flyin’, folks. Well, until the procedure began. Then I was just dizzy, but, hey, whatever. It didn’t hurt, at least.
- Seeing your insides. Maybe it’s weird, but that’s kinda cool. Well, until you run across a stray bit of food in there. Then it’s just weird.
- Having another patient, a young woman in her 20s, who is also flyin’ on the same narcotics, plonk herself beside you and start up a conversation, rather quickly working her way from “I’m scared,” to “Are you married? Not yet? I’m not married too! Wow!” She wasn’t quite hitting on me, but it had that vibe. Which would be flattering except we were both waiting for a sigmoid endoscopy, which makes it just kinda weird. But, flattering, I guess.
By the way, for those keeping score, the result is, “Nothing wrong, no problem.” Which means I’ve been rushing to the bathroom intermittently this month for some other reason. I have some meds, and an appointment this Saturday, to see what’s up.
(1) Which reminds me: why do none of these people ever get rushed to the ER due to some kind of tear or other side effect? You’d expect it of 0.1-1% of abductees, but the only thing they ever report is being freaked out.
(2) It probably smells like lubricant, actually. But I didn’t bother to check.