Post-colonoscopy rant

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So they cut out 13 polyps: I named them The American Health-care System, Big Pharma, the AMA, the Bush Administration, Guantanamo, Abu-Grahib, Big Oil, Big Coal, Environmental Destruction, Poverty, Genocide, Greed, Corruption and American Arrogance. Oops. I needed more polyps, because I was just getting started.

Remember the Ugandan faith healer of a few posts back? I should have trusted my intuition and gone to him rather than to the endoscopy center of Winchester Medical Center.

Somewhere on me is a "Kick Me" sign visible only to doctors. Every encounter I've had with one has resulted in something potentially litigious, but who am I against the mighty army of the AMA?

And so it was again yesterday when, after ten years of hearing how I "should" have a colonoscopy and with no history of colon cancer in our family, I went for the past-middle-age rite of passage: the dreaded colonoscopy (or, as Suzi put it, "the ultimate reality show").

Posing as a rational adult who had legitimate causes for concern and who had come to the conclusion that something in there was amiss, I scheduled the event, followed the directions to the letter and submitted in body, mind and spirit to the "cleansing" procedure and invasion of the camera up my butt.

Skipping to the end of the story would only justify the medical community's perspective, but here it is: I had 13 nasty polyps removed and don't know yet if they are benign, "pre-cancerous" or cancer. So, yeah, I was right about needing the procedure, but that is not, as Paul Harvey famously said, "the rest of the storyl"

Back to that "prep": Inconvenient? Yes. Unpleasant? Most definitely. Not something to discuss in polite society? Of course, but here on Ajax Rock, we're allowed to be politically incorrect, even gross if the story demands it.

Nowhere in all of the instructions or the disclaimers did it say that It would make me violently ill, cramped and nauseated as all get-out, curled up in a ball wishing to die, weak and trembling and chilled and sick as the proverbial dog. This continued unabated from 6:30 p.m. until well after I arrived at the hospital at 8:00 a.m. for a 10:30 procedure. I could barely sit up and actually had to lie down in the waiting room on the floor. I was praying that my living will would have to be put into effect.

Okay, you think I'm a drama queen, but it's not true. I was working so hard at being compliant and cooperative. And here's the other thing: Everyone else who was coming in for the procedure or coming out the other door at its end was perfectly normal, even cheerful, as if they were all gathering at their local Starbucks for their morning cup. And there I was, on the floor doubled up in pain and nausea, unable to toss my cookies because my stomach was totally empty.

Hope springs eternal I guess, because when I got into a room with a real bed, TV and chair for George, I began to feel reassured, willing myself to be calm and envisioning the horrendous events in China and Burma and chiding myself for thinking I was miserable compared to the millions who were truly suffering. The nurses were nice, solicitous even, and I began to cry in relief. But the doctor was nearly two hours behind, and I was growing more desperate, more thirsty, more anxious.

Last chapter -- I promise. I'm wheeled into "the room" like a chunk of meat on the hoof, ready for my turn. The promise of sedation was bliss, a glimpse of heaven. And off I went, only to come out of the anesthesia while the doctor was cutting polyps out of my insides, with nurses bent over me telling me to take deep breaths and be calm because they were "just finishing up." No more anesthesia for me, no siree. That might mean I would take up space in the recovery room longer, and nothing gets in the way of the well-oiled machine of the endoscopy center. So I endured at least four barbaric painkiller-free polyp removals, hanging on to the bed rails and screaming in pain. I ask you: Is this the best modern medicine can do? Would I not have been better off with the Ugandan faith healer? Should I bomb the endoscopy center or just go quietly into that good night, being a good sport about the whole thing, "ha-ha-ha-ing" my way out the door?

Too weak to fight, I submitted. In a daze, I was shown photographs of my nasty polyps and told they would let me know what the biopsies show. Like a good little soldier, I meekly dressed and went home.

This morning I woke up weak, exhausted, traumatized and ANGRY! I have begun my quest for alternative medical providers, starting with a nutritionist and an alternative therapist. I'm planning to get even by putting as much distance between myself and Western medicine as I can. Beth cut right to the chase when she told me she would lose her license to practice veterinary medicine if she cut something out of a dog's body without anesthesia. Looks like I should have gone to a vet, doesn't it?

Today I am imbued with Daddy's spirit. I hear him telling me that I can find ways to take care of myself with common sense and not to trust the medical establishment any farther than I can throw them. Today I feel "all Peck, all the time," and it's a relief. I've got my fight back. I'm not gonna take it any more.

Tie me to a tree. Put me on an ice floe and float me out to sea (if there's still ice left in the Arctic), put me in a padded cell if you must. But keep those doctors away from me. Or send me to Uganda.