Tub o’ guts

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I’m getting sick of repeating myself, but I turned 50 in March. That’s the trigger for many rites of passage, not the least fun of which is the colonoscopy.

A colonoscopy is a medical procedure where the doctor shoves a camera up your ass like four or five feet.

Of course, it’s not as simple as that. I was on a liquid diet (no red or purple fluids) for 36 hours before the procedure. The night before, I had to drink two quarts of the laxative MoviPrep, which made me go big potty in ways that were both wondrous and disgusting.

The next morning, bright and early, my friend took me to meet the proctologist.

I guess the only thing that was less than routine was I refused anesthetic. I didn’t even know refusal was an option until the nurse mentioned it to me in passing. Then, full-court press: Two nurses and the doctor all tried to talk me into going to sleep.

Instead, I was awake through the whole thing. I got to watch the journey to the center of the Brian on a screen directly in front of my face. Totally cool and fascinating. It was about as uncomfortable as having crampy diarrhea. Absolutely no reason to go under.

I asked if I could video on my phone, and they told me I could not. Weird. It wasn’t a technical issue. It wasn’t for my safety. The fact that they were so insistent I should be asleep in combination with the refusal to let me video or even passively record brought out the skeptic in me.

It’s to protect the doctor in case something goes wrong. That’s the only thing I can figure. Insurance companies (or doctors) don’t want a record or even a lucid witness if a bowel gets punctured or an obvious polyp is missed.

Colonoscopies save lives. They cut the death rate from colorectal cancer by 53 percent in people whose physicians removed adenomatous polyps. My guts were clean, polyp-free and fresh as a spring rain.