For the past 24 hours, I've been preparing for a colonoscopy, which is scheduled for this evening.

I don't mind the not eating, the drinking of only clear fluid (ginger ale, in my case), the frequent trips to the bathroom, or even the procedure itself (I've had two previous colonoscopies). But I absolutely abhor the PegLyte solution I need to drink: 4 litres of what—to me—tastes like cloyingly sweet Kool-Aid.

I prepared it in advance, as I needed to mix the powder with lukewarm water in a jug the size of a dictionary. I chilled it, as the instructions indicate that this can make it easier to tolerate. Then, at the appointed time, I poured out 2 L into a large glass measuring cup. I set a timer to remind myself to drink one cup (or 250 mL) every 15 minutes over the subsequent two hours. I used a straw, as recommended. I held my nose, took 5 long draws on the straw, then looked at the markings on the glass to ensure that I had consumed the first cup. I had barely put a dent in it. I took 5 more hauls on the straw. I made it to half a cup. I drank more until I managed to reduce the total by one cup. I rolled my eyes and set my timer for 15 minutes.

Rinse and repeat seven more times. I made a valiant effort, until somewhere between the second last and the last cup, when I threw up. Not a lot. Not enough to wipe out everything I had done to that point. But enough to have to haul my duvet down to the washing machine.

But that was last night's torture. Today, I tried a new strategy. Yes, if it's not bad enough that you have to drink 2 L of PegLyte the night before your procedure, you have to drink two more litres the day of. Today, instead of one large cup with 2 L of PegLyte solution, I made 8 individual portions of 1 cup (250 mL) each. That way, when I started sucking on a dose, I knew how hard I had to work to meet my goal each time. I set up the 8 glasses on my kitchen table, like shots at a bachelorette party. Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" would have been a fitting party anthem.

Before I started today's adventure, I went searching for ways to make the preparatory process less awful. I came across MedStar Health's Tips to Make Colonoscopy Prep More Bearable and I appreciated their explanation of what colonoscopies are designed to do and why the prep is so important:

Colonoscopies detect colon and rectal cancers while they are still small and treatable, but they also are used to find and remove polyps, which are small growths that can develop into cancer. To see these growths, the doctor needs a clear view during the procedure. This requires emptying the colon of its contents.

I laughed out loud when I got to this bullet point in the "Prepare the bathroom" section: "Keep entertainment handy; you may be there a while. This could include books, a laptop or a tablet." I don't know why I found that so funny.

I was also amused by the suggestion to suck on a lemon after drinking the PegLyte. Throw in a little salt, and it would be like doing a shot of Tequila, I thought. I drank Tequila only once in my life, coincidentally at a bachelorette party. But as that didn't end well for me (let's just say I imbibed more than my 16-year old body could handle), I was suspicious of this suggestion. Besides, I didn't have a lemon in the house. But I did have lemon juice. After my first dose of PegLyte, I took a hit of lemon juice. It was actually refreshing—like a citron-flavoured sorbet to cleanse the palate. Three glasses in, I thought, "how 'bout some lime juice?" Yummy. It was even better than the lemon juice. Citrus invictus!

I also tossed out the idea of plugging my nose while sucking through the straw. This just made it harder to suck, unduly elongated the time to get through the horrid stuff, and didn't do any better of a job at masking the flavour. I just went to town on the solution, waiting for that satisfactory slurp that indicated I had hit bottom.

The MedStar Health's article included a link to Dave Barry's 2008 column about his colonoscopy. I was a little jealous that he had to consume only 2 L total of MoviPrep compared to my 4 L of PegLyte, but his experience sounded equally revolting. Barry wrote:

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, "a loose watery bowel movement may result." This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

Fortunately, I never felt like a space shuttle, though I appreciate the humour in Barry's depiction of that part of the prep. It's true that when the spirit moves you, you have seconds to make it to the bathroom. (A discreet panty liner can save a lot of trouble.) But my bathroom sittings weren't the hour-long sessions that Barry described. I was more like a sprinter than a marathoner.

Despite the humour in Barry's column, he does have a serious point. While his doctor had recommended that he get a colonoscopy at 50, he put it off. It wasn't until he turned 60 and his younger brother was diagnosed with cancer after going for a routine colonoscopy at the age of 50 that Barry finally went for the procedure himself. It wasn't nearly as bad as the prep. He wrote:

In addition to being a pathetic medical weenie, I was a complete moron. For more than a decade I avoided getting a procedure that was, essentially, nothing. There was no pain and, except for the MoviPrep, no discomfort. I was risking my life for nothing.

This summarizes well my own experience.

If you're wondering whether you should talk to your healthcare provider about a colonoscopy, you may wish to consult Colorectal cancer screening in Canada: 2021/2022, published by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, and specifically its page on provincial and territorial screening guidelines. You may also want to read the Canadian Cancer Society's Risk factors for colorectal cancer. But if you have any doubts, talk to a healthcare professional.