On Achieving Farthood: See You at Your Next Colonoscopy!

"Como te veo, me vi; como me ves te veras" is and old Mexican proverb that addresses the idea that we all must grow old, saying to the impudent young: "Go ahead and laugh at me, because how I see you I once was, but how you see me, you will one day be!"

It seems that lately all my friends and I talk about is pain, prescription meds, cataracts, enlarged prostrates, and yes my friend Colonoscopies! We gossip about CT scans, MRI's, Sleep Apnea, Hemorroids, and side-effects.

In between, we share the medicinal secrets of fish oil, daily vitamins and the curative properties of Marijuana, tortillas, Fish Oil, Ginger, Garlic and Meditation.

Go ahead and laugh but where I presently am, you will one day be too.

Dr. Oz and Opra mouth their daily mantras against snoring, obesity, fat, and lack of exercise, and we pay little attention to warnings signs until it is too late. There is something frightening about lab work, x-rays, mammograms, and gloved doctors shoving greased index fingers in our rectums to see if our prostrate has grown since last time!

But a colonoscopy? Oh Lord. Luckily, they put you out. As you sit in the tense lobby full of a dozen other patients you wonder "Are they all here for the same thing? Even that good looking young lady over there?"

We watch in horror as previous patients leave, searching in desperation for some sign on their face suggesting it will be horrible. "It's a breeze", one lady says to us, and chuckles, as she is led out of the office.

In truth, the worst part of the whole thing is Prep Day, 24 hours before the procedure and being restricted to a diet of liquid foods, jello! But even that pales against what awaits you at 4 and 6 o'clock that day: having to ingest two (2) 10 oz. bottles of that crap "Sodium Nitrate", and the boweled Vesuvius that follows! Not even my trusted Preparation H was any help!

Anyway, it's all over now and I'm home-free for another 5 years. "Can I get a picture of my hemorroids?" One lady in the adjacent cubicle asked. "Sorry", said the nurse, "but I can give you a picture of mine if you want", she quipped. No thanks.

I was given a photocopy of the inside of my colon; I have absolutely no idea why. Would anybody like to see it? So go right ahead and laugh, but I just attended a funeral for a young female friend who died of colon cancer just days before her 48th birthday. It's really not funny at all.

See you at my next colonoscopy.