Who needs that silly blood pressure thing anyways?

During my last physical I mentioned I was due for a colonoscopy. I was blessed with a talented colon; it possesses the innate ability to grow potentially precancerous polyps at an age where I shouldn’t even be remotely thinking about them. (I’m not THAT old!) So lucky me has to have this procedure every 5 years or so to have them removed.

So my spiffy new doctor sends me to a spiffy new gastroenterologist. It came up in conversation that I only take half the “prep”. Prep being all the shit they make you take the day before the procedure to ensure your colon is sparkly clean enough to eat off of. Wha?? He tells me they have newer gentler stuff and that I should take the whole thing.

Fast forward to day before procedure. The two packets of stuff I had to take during the say made me agree with him wholeheartedly, hey this wasn’t so bad at all. It even tasted better than that other shit that I’m sure was some sort of mixture of trucker cab mattress squeezings and nuclear waste along with the obligatory hint of lemon. So far so good except that my first foray into the bathroom yielded a horrible discovery…MY TOILET IS SUDDENLY AND INEXPLICABLY BROKEN. Are you kidding me?! Now of ALL times!? I jimmy it, to make it kinda work cuz at this point I am NOT having anyone over.

Before bed I had to take two tablets of something, although at this point I KNOW I got nothing left in me but I trusted this new doc about taking it all. About 5am I’m forced to bound from my bed for more purging fun….aka some INCREDIBLY INTENSE purging fun. Problem is there is nothing left in me and I wonder at what point when there’s nothing left does your body start purging vital organs? And then my body starts to feel REALLY inexplicably fucked up. My temp suddenly spikes and I instantly start pouring sweat. I don't know what to do cuz I can in no way get up to get the phone and call like maybe 911. Besides my place is kinda messy and do I want paramedics over? Imminent death vs guys seeing my messy apartment…hmmmm. Finally I am able to venture out. I get up but my legs feel like pliable rubber. I stumble and then promptly faint.

Each time I woke up I tried to get to the phone, but my body would do the “no we are laying down again RIGHT NOW” thing. My legs stayed in rubber mode, my head swam, I was cared shitless…pardon the pun. It took me about two and a half hours and a visually entertaining combination of staggering, fainting, crawling, stubborn determination (because I refuse to die from laxatives, I just REFUSE! I survived a wolf, I can survive shitting) and fervently praying but I finally made it to the phone! Ha ha victory! Fuck you, you can’t keep a good girl down! I call the clinic where I will be having the procedure. Relief flows over me when someone answers and I know that surely they will send a team over right away to tend to my dying personage. I tell her what’s happening to me and she says to me in a sing song happy cheery voice that it's just a reaction to the prep, don’t worry. Wtf? I repeat – I keep fainting! "Oh yeah it’s just your blood pressure dropping that can happen don't worry, just drink lots of water." Dumbfounded doesn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling at that point.

In the end I survived the purging, dangerously low blood pressure, slight concussion, dehydration and the vast disappointment of only getting some lame ass sedative that was no fun at all instead of the highly anticipated shot of Demerol. Fuckers…