Dueling Banjos
A Cancer Journey Story
The year was 2014 and the results of Bill’s colonoscopy indicated he had cancer. Or did they? While the doctors he’d employed, Groucho and Shemp, played tug of war with mislabeled samples, Bill decided to set up a consult at the premiere cancer care center in St. Louis.
We were innocents that day, embarking on a journey in which we thought we were going to have a serious discussion at the swanky medical center with his future surgeon. When the nurse called us to the exam room, she asked Bill, “Have you prepped?” Novices of the gastrointestinal health scene, we weren’t certain what “prepped” meant. We had Bill’s lab results and a list of questions. We were tightly strung. Was any of that considered “prep?” Bill gave me a questioning look and said, “Uh, we’re here for a consultation.” I caught a fleeting expression of either disgust or annoyance on the nurse’s face.
Fate’s first banjo began to play.
Nurse McKinney handed Bill a hospital gown and told him to strip below the waist, our first clue that more than talking would occur. She left us alone in the exam room, which looked ordinary except it had a second door leading from the room and an eye wash station decked out in EMERGENCY red. An annoyed Nurse McKinney came back, glycerin suppository in hand, to give Bill his “prep.” Ooooh! Prep.
Once Bill was prepped, we learned that the second door in the room lead directly to a toilet room. We entertained ourselves with fart humor while we waited for Bill’s “prep” to work its magic. (do clown farts smell funny?) Bill entered the toilet room and soon, dueling sounds, in frequency and pitch, exposed the toilet room’s lack of acoustic privacy.
Then the Man entered, soon to be my hero, my husband’s future surgeon. He had a male intern and a female intern in tow — (just like on the tv!) After friendly introductions, the surgeon warped reality and told Bill to kneel at the far end of the exam table. Surprise!
This table soon had my husband in a fully supported downward dog position with his rump right up here at eye level. This was the male equivalent to stirrups! Bill’s face began to turn red, either from his ride on the table or the female interns proximity to his bare butt.
Bill’s disputed cancer was supposed to be located somewhere near his sigmoid colon. As evidenced by its name, the sigmoid colon is S shaped (I Googled it). The surgeon matter of factly told the room that the most complete way to view the sigmoid colon is to straighten it out. He held up this 12" long, (My mind’s eye actually remembers it as three feet long) girthsome, stainless steel wand thing. He lubed it up and…well…proceeded to straighten out my husband’s sigmoid colon. I bent down to rub my husband’s shoulder as a paltry offering of comfort. His eyes bulged and his mouth formed a tight O, and I assumed his sigmoid colon was straight. Then, in this crazy room, the surgeon pulled out what looked like a jeweler’s loupe.
Fate’s second banjo screamed bluegrass licks.
Like a mad scientist, he oscillated the loupe from eye to……eye and peered down into his bread and butter, his breath fluffing the soft down on my husband’s tushy. This was a teaching hospital, so the interns took their turns to peek. Bill was blissfully (ok, probably not blissfully) unaware that so many had now seen his sigmoid.
I wasn’t offered a peek, and I am ok with that, but as I stood there, contemplating this hyper real environment, a certain understanding smacked me right between the eyes — the purpose of the eye wash station! In my personal experience, I’d never known laxatives to have dependable timing. On this occasion, my husband proved that he is a dependable fellow through and through and did nothing to necessitate an emergency eye flush. But the banjos, they were at full on feud in my psyche as I paused to take in the entire setup. The reverberant potty, the livid eye wash station, the petulant prep nurse, not just this room but this entire wing, all of it was specifically designed for this view into the human anatomy. A manufacturer somewhere, employed workers, on an assembly line, who’d made a state of the art exam table, the express purpose of which was to put you in a quasi comfortable downward dog in order to allow convenient wand access to the sigmoid! Who would do that? Who would specialize in this profession and why on earth would they?!
Later, as we walked to our car and Bill was lost in his own thrumming hell, screwed by cancer and now by wand, I was overwhelmed by my visit to a world so remote from my daily reality. Thank God, I say, thank God for you, Superlative Surgeon, who specialized in this profession, with your magic wand and jeweler’s loupe. You saved my husband’s life.
Now that is deliverance.
A true story, written with my husband’s permission.
