Never Underestimate the Healing Power of Jack Daniel's

An unremarkable week-except for the fact that I didn't fall over, not even once!

I did go look at other storage companies, since mine has decided to increase the storage unit rent by £52 per four week period. Madness!! That is certainly a strong push for me to get everything out-and I have been really lazy in that respect. I could have bought and sold everything in there at least six times since I took the unit-and, if I really want to torture myself, I can simply ruminate on how much money I spent on storage. I think I will pass.

Next week I go to the London for a colonoscopy. Now I get to have them annually, since they found cancer last year. So I got this load of stuff I need to dissolve in water-it is supposed to clear the pipes, if you will (I will skip the gory details, especially if you are having lunch when you read this! Even I lose my appetite when I think of the gory details).

It's a bit like drinking liquid explosives. I start on the regimen on Sunday, follow it until Wednesday, when I go into the endoscopy unit at the Royal London at 9am. Then they will give me more stuff, just to make sure. Honestly-I asked Sean, my gastroenterologist, if I should go and have a colonic irrigation a few days before the procedure. He laughed at me-and told me that a colonic is just a high priced enema. For those of you who contemplate coughing up £150 or whatever-forget it, do the Fleet's for less than a fiver. Never say I didn't try to save you a few quid. And time. And aggro.

I remember last time-vividly, as it happens. I asked Sean just to give me a few shots of Jack Daniel's and be done with it-I wouldn't feel anything (hopefully). Instead, he had to hunt for a vein so he could give me some sedation. He finally found one: in my ankle. I said that he was the first ever to deflower my ankle-fortunately for me, Sean finds me very funny. And I call him by his first name-after all, he is the one who shoves the hosepipe up my rectum, so I reserve the right to be less formal!!

Speaking of hosepipes: that is what the thing looks like. It is scarily big-it looks like you should put a sprinkler attachment on it and use it in the garden. And that is the bloody big hosepipe that someone shoves up your backside for a colonoscopy. Through the hosepipe (okay, it's a massive tube-looks just like my garden hose. Maybe it is someone's garden hose), an attachment with a light on the end (and a camera) can show what is going on inside your intestines. If there is anything nasty (like there was for me last year), the doctor can cut it out, biopsy it, find out if it is cancer (or not). And-the patient really needs to be sedated.

I remember once having this procedure and not having sedation. Nobody could find a vein that they didn't break, so finally they decided to do it without anesthetic. Bad mistake! I can tell you how painful it is to have someone shoving something up the backside. Wow-after it was over, I went back to the clinic and said to the nurses that I could never understand how anyone in their right mind would ever have anal sex. Anal sex? Are you crazy? Only a masochist would actually enjoy having something shoved up their backside-unless, of course, they're British, in which case it would probably be so small they wouldn't notice. that hosepipe up my backside didn't half make my eyes water.

I naturally didn't slag off the Brits (my favorite pastime, it is so easy to do) when I mentioned about anal sex-and one of the nurses (who was gay) said that, of course, in a committed relationship...he got that far in the sentence and the rest of the staff just went into hysterics. It was really funny-although he didn't speak to me for about a year afterwards.

I will have some JD at the ready when I get home next Wednesday evening-I will need it, I'm sure. After the procedure, you get stuck in a room with a bunch of other patients, most of whom are moaning from one procedure or another...and after an hour of this, someone gives you a cup of very nasty tea (could be worse. Could be coffee. The Brits make coffee that could clean your tiles and peel the paint off your walls. Tea is safer. Usually.) and a biscuit (cookies to the rest of us). Eeek.

Sedation or no sedation, colonoscopies are interesting to watch-as long as you have a numb rear end. Who ever sees what is inside? I find it interesting, anyway-but then I am a bit of an anorak at heart (I was going to say anal, but that would be a really poor choice of words in this case!!).

I'll be fine, after three or four days of walking funny.