I am Matt Thomas.

Fun with Colons

April 29, 2004

I think this new “guest blogger” is going to be what gets my site it’s fifteen minutes of fame. Say hello to Luke, everybody.—Matt

Hello everyone, Luke Nelson here (of Matt Reviews His Friends fame). I couldn’t help but notice the serious slant iammattthomas.com has take on over the past few weeks. Now I am not condemning, serious times call for serious blogs, but I couldn’t help but remember the happy and carefree times of iammattthomas.com’s past. So, I thought I would throw in a little information (in a story with lots of run on sentences, misplaced commas, and common grammatical errors a 3rd grader would laugh at) on my recent colonoscopy to bring back a little of the lighthearted flavor.

Flavor is an interesting tie-in to my whole colonoscopy experience, the flavor of the four liters of laxative solution I had to drink, to be specific. The provided flavor packet said “orange,” but it should have said, “will make solution taste like the sweat of someone who drank a lot of orange Gatorade.” Actually, I can’t say that this stuff was that foul tasting, it was thicker than water and had a slightly salty/slightly orange flavor. What made it bad was that I had to drink four liters of this stuff, a 8oz glass every ten minutes to be exact.

It said on the bottle that it should kick in by the one hour mark, and that I should then experience “profuse diarrhea” for a good three hours. This lured me into a false sense of security, by making it seem so fun and easy in the explanation. It ended up taking around two hours for the stuff to start clearing my bowels; I attribute this to my bowels of steel. If you haven’t pictured this already then let me help you, before this stuff kicks in I have about 2.8 liters of this stuff in my stomach and I haven’t started expelling yet. Well, around the two hour mark the party got started.

It began with what felt like an innocent fart making its way to freedom, but right at the release point I noticed something was dead wrong. What ensued was a mad dash to the toilet during which, I will tell the whole truth for the sake of literature, there was some escapage before I got to my destination. This dash was to set the tone for the next three hours. The back half of my apartment was a stage for a violent assault upon the senses of any one who dared to venture in (namely my wife Lucy who heroically brought me the remainder of my laxative solution while my bowels held me hostage). I won’t play the part of a tough guy and say it wasn’t that bad, because it was. It is an experience I hope I never have to repeat. My legs fell asleep from sitting on the toilet for that long, and my ass was raw, and I don’t think I have to explain to anyone how unpleasant diarrhea is.

After I started to feel like I was done, I was careful by sitting on the toilet for a safety period. I decided it was all clear and decided to take a shower after wiping was shown to be too much of a undertaking. Well, I was not even close to finished. I had to jump from the shower to the toilet twice, which almost proved fatal as anyone who has tried to quickly sit down on a toilet seat while dripping wet could have predicted. It didn’t end there either folks; I wish it did. I had to make a run from my bed to the toilet at least four times during that sleepless night.

The actual colonoscopy won’t make much of a story since I do not remember any of it. I will include some illustrations of the procedure though just to give you an idea of what is going on. To summarize they shove a camera on the end of a 7ft flexible cable up your anus. As I said, I was not awake so I can’t comment on how it was. I know this is a bit disappointing, seeing as how it should be the climax of the story, but I am a terrible writer and even worse with grammar so you will just have to deal with the disappointment. The day after was pretty much boring, apart from a lot of farting, and I mean a lot. Oh, I also pooped slime the first time I dropped a deuce after the procedure. That was interesting; I was pooping slime and forcefully farting at the same time, needless to say I could have made one heck of a Pollack.

You will all be happy to know that my internal piping is clean as a whistle, with the small exception of some pre-hemorrhoidal tissue that will give me trouble down the road I am sure. This was a life altering experience for me, one that I never dared dream I would have the chance to fulfill. I learned two very important truths during this whole thing:

1. Your legs will fall asleep if you sit on the toilet for three hours.

1. My wife, Lucy, will stop at nothing to bring me more laxative solution.

   So, if you are in the Westerly, RI area and looking for a good time, stop in and visit Dr. Connors of G.I. Specialists, tell her Luke sent you.

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