When are you truly middle-aged? ‘The years 20 to 40 are what you might call the fillet steak of life,’ said Philip Larkin. ‘The rest is very much poorer cuts.’ Some might dispute this and put the turning-point at 45, while others will maintain it’s all about how old you feel rather than your biological age. To my mind, the critical factor is when you go through a particular rite of passage. I’m talking about a colonoscopy.
I’ve been trying to avoid having one for years, but a recent visit to my GP convinced me I could put it off no longer. After I’d told him about various stomach ailments (I won’t go into details), he asked if any members of my family had ever suffered from bowel cancer. I was shocked. Aren’t doctors supposed to avoid using the ‘c’ word unless it’s absolutely necessary? As it happens, my father did have bowel cancer so I immediately began to worry. My GB advised me to have a colonoscopy as soon as possible.
I then made two mistakes that I’d urge readers not to repeat. The first was to ask for a gastroscopy at the same time. This is when a scope is shoved down your throat so a doctor can examine your stomach. The specialist looked at me a bit oddly when I made the request, as if to say, ‘Are you quite sure?’, but it was too late to change my mind at that point. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ I said, cheerfully.
The second was to elect to have both procedures — the endoscopy and the wrong-end-oscopy — without sedation. Not quite sure what possessed me to do that. I think it was partly because I didn’t want to waste time sobering up in a recovery ward afterwards — I’m far too busy, doncha know — and partly because I feel competitive with my wife. I reasoned that if she could give birth to four children without any pain relief, I could dispense with the sedation.
When I told the specialist about this plan she was quite surprised. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever requested not to have sedation before,’ she said. ‘The procedure can be quite uncomfortable.’ As any fule kno, ‘uncomfortable’ is doctor-speak for ‘excruciatingly painful’, but again, I didn’t feel I could back down. It didn’t help that the doctor was quite pretty. It’s one thing being thought a coward by a man, but even worse by an attractive woman.
The gastroscopy was horrendous. I’d fantasised about being able to control my gag reflex through sheer willpower alone, but it wasn’t to be. I was choking almost continuously, like a terrorist suspect being water-boarded by the CIA. My only consolation was that at least the procedures were being carried out in the right order. Better to stick the scope down my throat and then up my bum rather than the other way round.
The colonoscopy wasn’t quite as bad, although it did take the best part of an hour. The worst part was when the doctor had difficulty getting the scope to ‘turn the corner’, something that happened three or four times. This is when the long, metal tube gets stuck at one of the U-bends inside your colon and a nurse has to press down on your tummy to help the doctor move it forward. At that point, I experienced some sharp stabbing pains that had me whimpering like a little girl. So much for wanting the doctor to think I was a real man.
During one particularly unpleasant episode, the male nurse asked me what I did for a living. I was about to answer when the doctor said, ‘Don’t feel like you have to respond. He’s just trying to distract you.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ I thought. ‘He might have succeeded in distracting me if you hadn’t pointed out he was just trying to distract me. As it is, I’ll just have to remain focused on this gut-wrenching pain.’
Afterwards, I was getting dressed in the recovery ward when another male patient was wheeled in and parked next to me. He, too, had had a colonoscopy, but unlike me he’d been sedated. He looked quite groggy, poor chap, and I felt a surge of triumph when a nurse told him he’d have to wait an hour and a half before he was allowed to leave.
I haven’t yet had the results back from the various biopsies the doctor took, but she told me everything looked fine. My GP says that men who are ‘at risk’ like me should have a colonoscopy every year. That’s something to look forward to, then.
Welcome to middle age.
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