Colonoscopy Cruise

Funny how Facebook pops up a memory right when you need a laugh. This story made it into my book, Widowhood: The Next Chapter.

After my husband passed in 2014, I faced my first colonoscopy without him. If you’ve had one, you know about the prep. MoviPrep isn’t a laxative; it’s Drano. I spent the night on the commode, my head on a pillow propped on a wooden stool, until there was nothing left of me but determination.

A dear friend drove me to the clinic (I promised to return the favor when her turn comes). Lying on that gurney in the chilly pre-op room, I missed Cullen terribly. He was the world’s best private nurse, with his homemade chicken soup, his back rubs, and a joke for every occasion. My mind drifted to the surprise “kidnap” trips I planned for him every Columbus Day Weekend: a treehouse in Big Sur where we stumbled onto Joan Baez singing by the Pacific, a cave house on a cliff in New Mexico, a houseboat on Lake Powell. Every year a different experience.

My daydream was interrupted by the patients behind the curtains. On one side, a man threatened to walk out if they didn’t take him in ten minutes. On the other, a woman was on her phone dictating her last wishes. Me? I had nowhere to be. I just lay there smiling, thinking about how I’d qualified for this procedure in the first place.

You see, COPD had whittled me down, and my doctor refused to scope me until I gained a few pounds.

So I did what any sensible woman would do. I booked a cruise with the girls. The Wild Boomer Women never disappoint. Plenty of laughter, personal stories were shared, and of course, food and wine.

After five days of midnight buffets, five-course dinners, and glorious little princess crowns, I stepped on that scale victorious. Doctor’s orders, ladies. Doctor’s orders.