My gastroenterologist will soon know me inside out

I finally made the call to the Gastroenterology center of Williamsville. They are the doctors that have a huge sign on Maple Rd. telling everyone who is 50 to get a colonoscopy. I didn't call because of the sign; I called because my primary doctor gave me a referral and told me to get it done.

Have you ever notice that the word "enter" is embedded in the word gastroenterologist? That's what they do, you know: enter your colon with a wee camera.  I'm very glad that cameras now are very teeny tiny. It makes me think of the movie Fantastic Voyage where instead of shrinking a camera and inserting it through the blood stream, they shrunk PEOPLE AND a SUBMARINE and let it rip through the body.  Talk about insane! I feel much more comfortable with a camera than with Raquel Welch intruding my nether regions.

Whenever I hear the word colonoscopy I always  hear Robert Klein's song
in my head. It's hilarious but also quite a catchy tune. Once you've heard it, you will never get it out of your head. I've seen Robert Klein in concert a few times because of the generosity of his musical director, Bob Stein. Bob is a lovely man and a good friend of Bill's - they met at the University of Rochester. Anyway, Bob always gets us tickets to see Robert Klein when he plays locally. (Click on the link above and you can see Bob playing the piano on the left side of the stage.) Klein's concerts are always fun. And his routine about colonoscopies always gets a huge response from the audience because his audience is "of a certain age" and they can relate.

When Bill turned 50 I took him to Millard Fillmore Suburban for his colonoscopy. He did fine. He woke up after the procedure and asked me when the HELL they were going to start. It took some convincing that it was all over. I distinctly remember folding him into his big Mercedes after we left the hospital. Normally, I don't remember those kind of details (i.e. what kind of car we were driving) but I remember this because this car had the phone built into the dash. It was before cell phones were so popular. The dash phone provided easy access for both the patient ( I mean the passenger) and the driver. As soon as he was seated he started punching out numbers and waiting for the ring. I looked over at him, a little confused, but I let it go. One of his clients answered the phone. Because Bill was seriously non compos mentis I paid attention to this conversation. Truthfully, I was curious as to how he was going to handle it and I was ready to be amused.

Within the first sentence he was "blah blahing" and I stifled a laugh. I told the man on the other end that Bill was drugged and was still recovering from a 'procedure'; that he was not himself and to please forgive him.  I then hit the "hangup" button and laughed my pants off. I got such  a charge out of seeing Bill in such a state. He really thought he could do some business on the ride home. In fact, he was certain he could go back to work. Once I got him home, I hustled him upstairs and into bed and took away the bedside phone. Those drugs kept him comatose until dinner.

I still can't figure out how he remembered his client's phone number. I guess those drugs don't affect a trained eidetic memory.