Cancer, I'll Give You One Year by Jennifer Spiegel

Author:Jennifer Spiegel [Spiegel, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781725255920
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2020-04-13T17:54:30+00:00

The official end of my rock n’ roll era: Family photo at U2 concert on May 23, 2015 (about one month before diagnosis): Bust. Photo by the author.

21

Up Yours! (October 19, 2015)

Well, that was fun.

This will be a short chapter because—really—even I might draw the line here.

Today, I had a colonoscopy and an upper endoscopy. Finally, after maybe more than a month of what we might politely call “rectal bleeding,” I saw the doctor (who proved to be a hottie) and scheduled this outpatient procedure. I suspected the blood was an effect of chemo, but everyone was on red alert: Perhaps it was colon cancer.

The hot doctor troubled me the most, and I couldn’t exactly complain to my oncologist—the recipient of all medical complaints—that the doctor he sent me to was too attractive to do an anal probe. (“Can you refer me to an uglier doctor?”)

When I envisioned it, I was very unhappy: One probe in the butt, one probe in the mouth, me out cold, probably in a very unflattering fetal position, wigless (because would they let me wear it in a supposedly sterile environment or, if they did, would it accidentally slip and they’d try to fix it, but they wouldn’t really be able to—so I’d either wake with it absurdly askew or looking like my old Baby Orangutan-self?). This was not a pretty picture.

Actually, I wore my skullcap. Which isn’t any better. A cross between me Going Gangster and me Going Holocaust.

The night before the probe is not fun.

First, one fasts with a liquid diet. No cream in my coffee. I drank four cups of chicken broth, which I can’t recommend.

Then, one drinks this bizarre prescription brew whose aim it is to, um, clear you out. Which it does. All night long. Maybe sixteen times.

I thought they were joking.

They were not.

* * *

And just because you don’t have cancer, do not assume you’re safe. They recommend yearly colonoscopies for everyone after the age of fifty (this might be changing). But you are safe from other things. I had to go in for immune-boosting shots on Friday and Monday (with more bloodwork on Monday).

The procedure itself was OK. They did make me take a surprise pregnancy test, and Tim and I had to muffle our boisterous laughter.

Then, the nurse missed my vein when she inserted the IV, and that hurt.

But another nurse was a big fan of The Walking Dead, and she was totally caught up—so we immediately launched into a serious discussion on Carol and Carl and how Morgan needs to get his shit together. When that nurse left, Tim whispered, “You asked the nurse the same question twice.”

“How did she respond?” I asked.

“She graciously answered twice.”

What did I say about nurses?

Didn’t I tell you?

I know I said something.

Is there an index in this book?

Can you look it up?

Hardest working people out there.

Did I say that twice?

As for the hot doctor, Tim said, “He really wasn’t all that hot.”

(He was.)

I only saw him for five minutes: two and a half minutes before the procedure and two and a half minutes after the procedure.

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