Continued…
Previously: I have taken SUPREP, the colonoscopy prep laxative that is mean to clear out all of the residue (poop) in my colon, so the doctors can examine it, from the inside, from one end to the other. I drank it at 6 PM and I am waiting to feel the effects.
6:30 PM – Still nothing. I expected to be hunched over the toilet, having diarrhea pangs, residue gushing out of my…by now, but all I’m feeling, maybe, is the beginning of a little bit of gas, just enough for a mini-burp or a nearly soundless little poot no one notices but me – except for the smell. I’ll have my second 16-ounce cup of water at 6:40 PM and then we will see if something happens by 7 PM. I heard horrible things about SUPREP. I expected to be incapacitated within thirty minutes. I’m a little disappointed.
6:39 PM – and something is coming in hot and fast. I debate skipping the water until after the storm but I don’t know how long I will be on the toilet. I’m supposed to drink 32-ouncs within the first hour after drinking the laxative, but urban legends from the internet tell of people practically trapped on their toilets for a hour or more. If I don’t drink the water before going to the bathroom, or take the water with me, I may miss the one-hour window. I meet myself in the middle: I fill the cup and take it with me – quickly – to the toilet, set it on the counter carefully with just enough time to drop “trou” and underwear and settle myself gently on the toilet…
6:40 PM – …before residue (DIARRHEA) rushes out of me with enough velocity to SLAP the toilet water and splash my exposed butt and thighs with fresh toilet water (that’s what I am telling myself). it sounds like my intestines are being poured out. It goes one for what feels like five stunning minutes before dwindling to a steady trickle
6:42 pm – for two minutes before it stops. Kind of. I am still dripping when I remember my water. Every little movement rattles my bowels and I am not even sure I should drink the water. That much fluid, that much volume, that much cold liquid could set the whole thing off again. Okay. Wait. No. I am trying to have diarrhea right now, not stop it. I want diarrhea.
6:45 PM – I Still wait another three minutes though, rectum twitching, clenching, seizing, unclenching then seizing up almost immediately. I feel nauseous. I could vomit it all back up. But I need to drink this within one hour, so…plastic bottoms up.
6:45 PM – immediate stomach cramps, farting (or, I should say sharting – farting and pooping at the same time) with diarrhea. My right left lifts involuntarily, to get me in a better position to better defecate, I think.
6:50 PM – ugh, this sucks. I can barely stand before I start trickling over my butt cheeks and have to sit down again.
7:10 – When am I going to stand again? I am practically glued to this toilet. I don’t dare move unless I want to clean up a mess on the carpet when this is all over.
7:26 PM – At last. It’s all over. I feel stable enough to get off the toilet and go back into the living room. I’ll watch some YouTube while I wait for the next explosion. I get off the toilet slowly and shuffle gingerly into the living room butt naked. I lost my underwear in the bathroom and I don’t want to sit on…OH!
7:26 – !!! Barely made it back to the toilet before the floodgates break loose. How can I possible have this much water in me? I should be a dried out old mummy by now, the way it’s gushing out of me. I’m writhing, for some reason, and I can’t stop it. Nice long stomach cramp to finish things off and all is still – except for the steady drip drip into the toilet bowl.
7:35 PM – Back to the living room. Forgot my underwear again. don’t want to wash myself off until I’m finished for the night. I think. We’ll-!
7:35 pm – Just barely with my left leg stickling up in the air -for some reason. Booty twitching. Heart pounding. Making some awful grunting noise I hope nobody hears. The heck? This is brutal.
7:40 PM – I stand up. I trickle. I sit down. I gush for a couple of seconds. All quiet on the southern front. I stand up. I fart and trickle. I sit down and shart for a minute or two. I stand up. And goes on and on.
7:45 PM – My God, why hast Thou-. Blasphemy all the way. Pure and simple. I drank that juice. I knew what was coming – from an intellectual standpoint, anyway.
8:00 PM – This has sucked, thoroughly. I want to stand up, go to the kitchen, drink some cold water. But, I’m afraid of what will happen. I can’t keep having close calls. I’m going to be too late, eventually. I know it. My butt knows it. God knows it.
8:15 – I’ve sat on the toilet so long my left leg is numb. I’ve pinched a nerve somewhere. I dozed off. Time to go.
8:17 PM – I make myself stand and wait for my left leg to come alive again. A fart, a shart, waits on the edge of my butt hole, threatening to come out. Could be a fart. Could be a shart. Can you risk it? Ten seconds, fifteen seconds, thirty. Nothing happens. I limp to the living room.
8:21 PM – and sprint back to the bathroom. Fart. Shart. Plop. Pow! Like it was shot from a cannon. A gush. An everlasting trickle. Drip. Drip. I’m trapped.
Am I going to be able to go to bed?
The short answer is “no”. I tried to lay down, when things settled down a bit, but it was just like sitting in a chair or on the couch. I’d relax, get comfortable, close my eyes, try to doze, and have maybe thirty seconds to get to the toilet before my bowels just let go. I couldn’t make them clench. I couldn’t hold my feces in. If this is what incontinence is like, for older people, not being able to keep yourself from defecating, your bowels just loosening no matter how hard you try… I have a whole new understanding and some real sympathy.
11:55 PM – a shart catches me napping, just as I drift off to sleep. I get most of it in the toilet. I rinse my underwear off in the tub and toss them on top of the laundry, first thing to be washed.
Part 3, The Colonoscopy itself, tomorrow, hopefully…
Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash
Mark Earnest Johnson 