Photo by Angela Kirk

Healthy dogs like myself get taken to see the veterinarian about once a year but if you are older than dirt like Doc, apparently there are all sorts of medical exams and tests they like to run on you. In the past few weeks Doc has been catching up on her medical check ups and exams that were postponed because of COVID. She has had her eyes examined, her ears and nose checked out and  her teeth cleaned, but this Friday she is having the mother of all exams called a colonoscopy. Apparently there is a lot involved in preparing for this test and after Doc explained it to me I am sure glad dogs don’t have to do this.

As we are in the middle of a pandemic, part of the preparation was a request by the doctors to be tested for COVID prior to the actual procedure. Since they were sending Doc to a outdoor testing site, I got to ride along. When we arrived we pulled up in our car and nice smiling nurses all dressed up in their PPE  approached the car and after checking Doc’s ID to make sure she wasnt’s using an allias she was instructed to tilt her head back and grip the steering wheel very hard apparently so that she could brace herself for what was about to happen. Then one of the smiling nurses gingerly stuck a very long swab that looked to be about 2 foot long up each nostril. As we we were driving away all Doc would say was ” it felt like they were probing my brain.”

Thursday is the game changer and the day I am not looking forward to as the prep for the testing will start. She has to be on a clear liquid diet that I know will make her grouchy and leave me without table scraps. Then at about four in the afternoon she will start of drinking what looks like a few gallons of some awful mixture that Doc says works like an atomic cleaning fluid for your colon. She says this prep will go on for hours, so I have decided to play it smart and lay low over at my friend Norman’s house until it’s over.

On Friday morning Doc’s nephew Scott will come and drive her to the medical clinic. Doc says columnist Dave Berry described it best when he said that basically they wheel you into the procedure room where an anesthesiologist puts you to sleep and then the doctor puts a 17,000 foot tube up your behind. I’m not sure what they are looking for but just hearing about it is enough to make me faint.

Hopefully when it’s over the doctor will tell her what a nice looking colon she has. Then we can all get some rest and look forward to not having to do this again for another 5 years.