"The Inside Story"

By Jerry Zezima

Every 10 years, my internal clock, which I inadvertently swallowed while eating Jell-O, reminds me to have a colonoscopy.

Unfortunately, the sulfate solution I took to wash down the Jell-O and everything else I ingested on my one-day liquid preparation diet would have lost to sewer sludge in a blind taste test.

That’s the sacrifice I made to keep the situation fluid for a doctor to explore my innards and ensure everything was clear except, of course, for my internal clock, which read 11:15 a.m., the time I had the procedure.

The day before, I had to prepare. This entailed following a menu composed entirely of liquids that did not, regrettably, include beer or red wine.

“Drink at least 8 glasses of clear liquids,” said the instructions from my gastroenterologist. “Examples include: apple juice, water, clear broth or bouillon, Gatorade, Snapple, carbonated soda, Jell-O, ice popsicles, black coffee, black tea. … You cannot have orange juice or other liquids you cannot see through.”

For breakfast, I had black coffee. I wasn’t allowed to put milk in it because you can’t see through milk, especially if it’s still in a cow. And a cow is considered solid food, which I couldn’t have, either.

For lunch, I had chicken broth, minus the chicken (see above). For dessert, I had a cup of Italian ice, a box of which my wife, Sue, bought so I could stay hydrated but still feel like I was actually eating something.

Throughout the day, I drank enough water to drown a walrus. That’s why I used a pedometer (or, more appropriately, a pee-dometer) to count the number of steps (2,765) I took to the bathroom. Since we have two and a half bathrooms, I visited all of them. I must confess that using the half-bathroom confused me. Was I supposed to finish in another bathroom or just  use a full one?

At cocktail time, I had Gatorade in a wineglass.

“Cheers!” I said to myself.

For dinner, there was the piece de resistance, a French phrase meaning, in this case, “resist a piece of anything that tastes good.”

So Sue made me a large bowl of green Jell-O.

I sat at the kitchen table, a tablespoon in hand, and dug in.

“You outdid yourself!” I told her.

“Sorry you have to watch me eat,” said Sue, who had a plate of chicken parmigiana.

At 6 p.m., it was time for the first of two doses of the sulfate solution, six ounces of which I poured into a 16-ounce mixing container. I added enough water to fill the plastic cup, stirred the concoction and took a sip.

My throat constricted, my spine shuddered and my nose hairs quivered.

“How does it taste?” Sue asked.

“Like it was run through a dead weasel,” I spluttered.

When I finished, I had to drink two more 16-ounce cups of water within an hour.

At 10 p.m., I repeated the process.

Shortly thereafter, all hell broke loose. It was like a geyser through a geezer.

The next morning, I went for my colonoscopy.

I told a nurse anesthetist named Dave that the first time I had a colonoscopy, I was given a local anesthetic that kept me awake for the procedure, which I watched on a screen.

“It was like driving through the Lincoln Tunnel on the off-hours,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” said Dave. “This time you’ll be knocked out.”

Half an hour later, it was all over.

“You did great,” Dr. Emily Glazer told me in the recovery area.

“So did you,” I said. “At least I don’t have to do this again for another 10 years.”

“Maybe by then that awful sulfate solution will taste better,” Dr. Glazer said.

I toasted the sentiment with a small bottle of apple juice, which a nurse had given to me.

“Thanks, doc,” I said. “Bottoms up!”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima