The first time I did a colonoscopy was 35 years ago in Long Island and my father was discovered to have colon cancer.  Since my mother’s father had died of it, I agreed to the procedure.  An indifferent doctor gave me just enough anesthetic to feel no pain but hear every word of his conversation with his nurse – the jist of it was the renovation of his kitchen and the kind of marble top he wanted for his counter.  After the procedure he had no time to tell me, but left a note that he had removed 2 polyps and I was okay. 

That’s why I waited a decade or so when I got back to Israel to allow a repetition of the procedure.  Then it was in the hospital, and as I lay waiting to be brought into the operating room, I heard the doctor inform the man in the next room the patient that he was sorry but his cancer had returned. 

Again I had two polyps and was reminded as I was waking up that I had seen my father hospitalized at the last moment from an ulcerated polyp, so I better getting over listening to what doctors say and just keep repeating the process for my own good.  So I tried some private doctor’s clinic one year (when my step-daughter had to back up an entire block to get to his house and we had a good laugh about that), and different clinics – every three years.  One was with Ezi who went first and wasn’t given enough anesthesia, so as I waited to be rolled in I heard him screaming, “I FEEL IT – IT HURTS!” When I got into the operating room right after, I heard myself scream, I WANT MY WHOLE DOSE AND WHATEVER YOU SKIMPED ON HIM.  Pain makes one narcissistic.

Finally I wound up with a kind, discreet, and efficient health clinic gastroenterolist and stayed with him for over a decade.  But  today was my last one, and it was the least traumatic.  This time when the pre-op nurse went through my tests, praising the results, and then saying the same thing to the man next door, I laughed out loud, and when the operating nurse answered my inquiry about her name with “Ruba,”  I said “tasharafna” – an inappropriately formal way of saying “nice to meet you” in Arabic – and she laughed.  The doctor announced the removal of my 2 polyps and we said farewell for the last time.  Whatever happens now I’ve already outlived my father and my grandfather.  And I’m going to make sure my kids take care because both of their grandfathers…