Last Friday I had the questionable pleasure of a Colonoscopy.  My primary doctor is trying to find out what is causing a rather severe pain in my lower abdomen.  An ultrasound showed that the ovarian cyst that ruptured last year was still there, but that otherwise my girly bits were clean and clear. 

Which left the bowel as the next area to explore.  It's been at least ten years since they found polyps there during the last jaunt up my bum.   I've been a little too busy with my mental health issues to bother with any follow-ups, plus really and truly, I'm hopeless at any kind of maintenance.


Things have changed quite a bit over the last decade or so.  Or maybe I blanked some of it out, you know, like the pain of childbirth or that drunken night of, well, whatever it was?  Either way, I couldn't eat the whole day before and in the evening I had to drink a gallon of completely revolting sludge that made me throw up as well as evacuate the entire contents of my colon.  The only bright spot was the hope that I might get an answer for what is causing the pain.  Oh, and that I'd get knocked out.

Maybe it was my hunger and thirst that made me creeped out by the doctor when we first met.  I was being wheeled into the room for my "procedure", when he greeted me from his rolling stool.  (No pun intended, honest).  They shot me up with Valium and Pentothal, and were astounded that I remained awake for 75% of the time.  I got the visuals of my inner rectum in HD on a large screen looming above, which was interesting. 

I came out of it minus three polyps, with a sheet of snap-shots to impress my friends.  But (hee hee), no answer to the reason why I'm in pain.
The whole thing got me to thinking, anyway, about why we do the jobs that we do.  I mean, Doctor Lichtenstein probably didn't grow up saying he wanted to be an arse doctor.  Or did he? 

I have had many jobs because I am a painter, so I never quite got on that career track.   Along the way I have stumbled upon some odd ways to make money.  Ways that my High School guidance councilor  never hinted at. 

For example, "fluffer".  Not that I'd do it, but still....  Did you know that you can make money acting as a patient for medical students?  As a food stylist, making even fast-food burgers look attractive?  As the person making up rediculous names for the colours of paint, lipstick and eye-shadow?  As a quick sketch portrait artist in an amusement park?  As an animal wrangler for television and film?  As a Bathyspere pilot?

And still we have the doctors that chose to be a proctologist.  Wonders will never cease.