Timing is Everything

I know that you hear that everyone should have a base colonoscopy at age 50 - but when I turned 50 I was in the midst of wedding plans to be the mother of the groom and then seven months later to be the mother of the bride!  (Did I tell you that these kids are almost five years apart in age?)  Anyway, I thought I was too busy.  So when I turned 51 we were in the midst of the DCIS diagnosis - and that was definitely on the front burner!  From there through age 54 I was just dragging my heels.  (At this point John had already had two colonoscopies, so I knew second hand that it appeared as if the prep was much worse than the actual procedure.)  Prior to my 55th birthday I was having a lot of problems - so I had a full hysterectomy done on May 6, 2010 (Carrie & Justin's 4th anniversary).  So once again the colonoscopy got put on the back burner.  But when I went back in for my checkups with my OB/GYN he told me - you know Cheryl you need to get that scheduled - and I assured him that I would. 

So at one of my GP checkups in early 2011 - we set it up.  I was going in to have my base colonoscopy done on February 15, 2011 (that was really poor timing with Valentine's Day being the day before - but they scheduled them on Tuesdays, and that happened to be one of John's days off.  Another time I might fill you in on John's weird schedule).

So I did all the prep stuff according to the instructions I was given - a glass of water every hour starting at 8:00 a.m. - and the normal stuff that you can and cannot have.  Then at 5:00 p.m. I mixed however much Miralax I was supposed to with 64 ounces of Gatorade - and started drinking 16 oz every 1/2 hour.  About a half hour after drinking the last 16 oz I was in the bathroom (no surprise there, huh) but also felt some nausea washing over me - I threw up about 16 oz - so I had to call the answering service to find out what to do.  The answer to that question was of course - to drink some more.  The problem being I had only purchased enough to do what I needed to do - so my wonderful husband went back out to the grocery store at 9:00 p.m. to get some more Miralax for me.

We went to the surgery center on the morning of the 15th and everything went as planned . . . except for the fact that they found no polyps, but they had found a mass - which they did a biopsy on.