Pooper View - A Wife's Experience with her Husband's First Colonoscopy

I want to preface this by saying that I love my husband very much,
and the mean things I say about him in this post are meant in jest...
He simply tested some nerves!   

If you read my last post, you saw that Hubby has been dealing with some mysterious abdominal pain, and we've seen all sorts of doctors for this issue. One of the things that his primary doc suggested was that he go ahead and do a Colonoscopy, now that he's 50 (though, the age to start that has dropped to 45, so yay, I should be having one soon as well). It didn't have anything to do with his pain issues (or newly discovered kidney issues), but just a general preventative test. 

The weekend before his Prep days, I did a quick google search of what he couldn't and couldn't eat/drink, and many websites only said to avoid red and purple foods or beverages. So I picked up some Blue Powerade, Orange Jell-O, some vanilla pudding... all things that his actual Prep Packet said that we should also avoid (nothing orange or blue). I also picked up Apple Juice, White Grape Juice, and the Mag Citrate drinks. I put all the drinks (plus some organic Lemonade from Trader Joe's) in the fridge to chill before the Prep began. 

On Wednesday morning (Prep Day), I set up the bathroom with a little TV tray that had air freshener, washcloths, baby wipes, butt cream, a USB cord for his phone, a space heater (the room gets cold), and an extra bottle of water. He set reminders on his phone for when he was supposed to start drinking his first Mag Citrate, and I put the timeline on the whiteboard on the fridge. He was supposed to drink a Mag Citrate at noon, take two Dulcolax at 2pm, then a second Mag at 6pm, in addition to 64oz of plain water. Hubby (to my irritation) doesn't ever drink a lot of any type of liquid, so there was no way he was going to be able to drink a half-gallon of water in a day! 

He opened the first Mag at noon, and immediately made a face. It was super-salty and tasted terrible and he wasn't able to drink a lot of it quickly. While he sipped, I made ramen for lunch (hey, I'm not on a liquid diet!) I think it took him about an hour to make it through the first bottle of Mag, and it was sitting loudly in his stomach. He followed it with the Dulcolax at 2pm, and it was fine... until about 3pm or so...

And the pooping began. 

At first, there wasn't too much of an issue; he went in, he pooped, he came back out, he went back in. But around 5pm, he started getting really nauseated and there was no way he would be able to start the next bottle at 6pm. He called the nurse-on-call and they said that it was totally normal; he should try to relax, breathe, blah blah blah. 

He started the second bottle of Mag at 7pm (about an hour behind schedule), but he was having a terrible time, only able to take tiny sips. I suggested that he mix it with any of the juices (he poo-pooed, heh, that idea) instead choosing to dilute it 4-to-1 with room temperature tap water. Sigh... all this did was stretch out how much water/mix he had to drink! Oh, and he decided to just camp out in the bathroom to drink this, instead of sitting on the couch during the non-poopage times. 

Throughout the day, I just randomly munched on snax, spending time working on the blog. I had a bagel with melted cheese for dinner around 9pm then just zoned out to YouTube videos and Reddit. Once in a while, he'd come out of his cave to check in with me and tell me to go to bed, but I told him that I was staying up however long it took him to finish the Mag, to make sure he was okay and didn't need any help. Around midnight, he was nauseated again, having a hard time drinking so much liquid (well, duh, you're drinking 4x as much liquid as you really need!). I had to put on my Nagging Wife hat and try to force him to finish the second Mag. 

He still had about a quarter-bottle of Mag left to drink at 2:15am, and he attempted to chug it which, unfortunately, ended up with vomiting (while pooping, bless his heart). Thankfully, most of the Mag had done what needed to be done, so we called it a night around 2:45am and went to bed (and damn, that bed felt so good! When I woke up on Thursday, I don't think I'd moved at all during the night). 

On Thursday morning, he was feeing a little better, and started his third bottle of Mag at 9am. I again suggested he mix it with any of the juices, and he again turned his nose up at the idea, choosing to go with plain, room temp water (okay buddy, sucks for you). 

I left at 10am for a previously scheduled hair appointment across town, picked up Chick-fil-A and a drink on the way home for lunch. While I was gone, he got all the Mag down, but a little came back up at the very end. He said that his output was the color and consistency that it should be, so I had to hope that he would be okay for the actual procedure (if the exit's not clean, they'll make you do it all again). 

Later in the afternoon, we got to the facility, checked him in, and only had to wait about 10 minutes before they called him back for his procedure. I wasn't allowed to go back with him, so I went on a field trip to find the hospital cafeteria. I didn't need any food, so of course, I ordered a plate of Bacon Cheese Fries! They weren't the best, but certainly not the worst I've ever had. The fries were hot and fresh, with tons of cheese sauce, and hand-chopped bacon (not 'bits') for about five bucks. 

I found a nice table outside in the shade, and ended up only eating about half of the fries (again, I didn't need fries...this was self-soothing with food). I walked back to the facility and sat in the main lobby near the elevators (quieter than the lobby where we checked in). I was there for about 45 minutes, and then the office called me to tell me that Hubby was coming around and that I should meet them at the front door, and they'd bring him down for me. 

On the drive home, we reviewed the After-Visit summary - they removed three polyps (one of which was a Tubular Adenoma, could become cancerous, but not cancerous right now), with no other issues found (including any reason for his mysterious LLQ pain). 

At home, he relaxed on the nice, soft couch, though he didn't feel a lot of pain or violation from the actual procedure. He had a little blood in his poo later (we were told that was to be expected), and over the following few days he had a painful butthole. All in all, this was an uneventful successful procedure, that he gets to do again in 3 years. 

Maybe then he'll listen to my suggestions more, do it my way, and have an easier Prep!