The best part of going to an endoscopic clinic is that after the ‘procedure’ I was tickled to refresh my brains how the digestive system works. If I’m not wrong, the digestive system was part of the biology classes during secondary school, which is generally from age 8-12 in The Netherlands. Note, dissection of animals has never been part of the Dutch educational system. I’m not sure what the reason for that might be: obviously, Northern American cultures have it generally in the regular cirriculum.
Anyway: the Pico Salax happened to start to work only after 5 hours, which meant that I wasn’t ‘pleasant’ all night (6 PM + 5hrs = 11 PM). The second batch of the drug (which had to be taken the next morning [this morning]) didn’t make things better. I did have many laughs about the ‘output’ of my digestive system, because at the end it was so senseless: the last bit that comes out of your rectum is pure liquid. Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wash your hands (you should do that all time, which is another thing that was hammered in our brains by the Dutch eductional system). It leaves me wonder what Pico Salax exactly does: I always thought that laxatives stimulated ‘bowel movement’ (can you say ‘mineral-oil’?).
The procedure itself was so easy that I have no clue what exactly happened. I was whiskered in ‘the room’, somebody showed off a nice (neat) Pentax endoscopic camera. In the mean time I was provided a sedative and the next thing I remember was that I woke up in a different room. Hey: what happened to the promised Live Screening Of Arthur’s Colon (In TechniColor)? Obviously, the nurses decided to ‘put me in an eternal sleep’ instead of having me ‘lightly sedated’. From what I understand is that I was in a deep sleep for almost 3 quarters of an hour: after that my wife was finally allowed in to see me, I had to dress up and had a conversation with the doctor, who said the next check-up should be in another 5 to 10 years. Most importantly, I’m still healthy, which doesn’t really surprise me, since I’ve not been using any medication since well… I can’t remember1. That long ago. And that 3 quarters of an hour sleep in a hospital bed did me pretty good, I’d say. Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going after some rootbeer.
1 Probably 6-7 years ago. Like I said, I’m generally pretty healthy. Quitting smoking helps too.