Friday, Feb. 23, 2007
Dear Diary:

The way everyone talked about it, I thought it was the puke-tastic sodium phosphate solution that would do me in.

HA! I sneer at the sodium phosphate solution! Sure, it was unspeakably salty and the fake lemon flavour was nothing to write home about, but it wasn't nearly as vile as I expected.

Maybe it was the advice of my three loyal readers to keep it as cold as possible and drink it as quickly as possible. My own take on the situation? I have been hardened, hardened I tell you, by years of choking down my own execrable cooking. I probably have a palate of iron.

That said, you know what did kill me?

Hunger.

Huge, overwhelming, just-how-much-eating-do-you-suppose-there-is-in-Binky? hunger. Oh yes, I considered the possible portion sizes I would get if I gnawed on my cat. It was a desperate, desperate 24 hours.

I'm blaming it all on the beans. Cursed, cursed beans. I shake my fist at you beans and your fibre-y goodness.

Ever since the spousal unit and I have embarked on Beanstock and a life of whole grain goodness, hunger has been a thing of the past.

A bowl of oatmeal topped with some fruit and a dusting of walnuts holds us both quite comfortably until lunch. An open face sandwich on rye, oat bran or spelt bread with a generous salad, followed by a mid-afternoon fruit snack, is all it takes to get to supper. Making supper some sort of beantastic meal followed by a reasonable dessert keeps us both full and happy until the cycle starts again.

Maintaining a healthy weight is a snap, and a tasty snap at that.

I didn't realize how long it's been since I've been hungry until this colonoscopy. When you're getting the poop chute checked out, you have to go on a liquid diet so the laxatives can empty out the old inner tubing. The rule of thumb the nurse gave me was that if I could see through it, I could eat it. So hello chicken broth, jello, and some fruit juices. Good-bye Beanstock.

If there is one thing I will take away from all this, it's that a life without fibre is a life of hunger. I started the clear liquid diet at 8 a.m. and by noon I was so hungry, tired and headachey that I could not focus on anything. I pounded back as much broth, jello and fruit juices, as well as water, that I could stand.

Overwhelming hunger coupled with laxatives so powerful that you wonder just how much methane the septic tank can take? Quite an experience.

The colonoscopy itself was a piece of cake. I asked the doctor to let me stay awake during it, because, seriously, how many times do you get a chance to look into your body? Apparently that's not his practice, though, because next thing I knew I was in the recovery area and two nurses were freaking out because my heart rate monitor was in the mid-30's, meaning my heart was going beat � beat � beat.

I drowsily told them I'm normally in the high 40's, low 50's now and sure enough, as I woke up more, my heart rate climbed into that range. They were not amused.

A short while later, the doctor came in to tell me I have no polyps. No sign of colon cancer.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

This morning's bowl of oatmeal never tasted so good.

On the advice of a friend who's just been through bowel surgery, I'm scarfing three tablespoons a day of something called BioK+ which advertises itself as being a bottle full of 50 billion plus friendly bacteria.

For all I know this could be false advertising and I could be ingesting 50 billion plus cranky bacteria. That's a lot of 'tude, any way you look at it. Sometimes, though, you just have to have faith.

Normally I don't consider the sociability of bacteria. But the thing is, I do know that antibiotics and the harsh laxatives they use for colonoscopies trash your digestive system. Active yogurt helps bring things back, but this BioK stuff will probably do it more quickly and with more varieties of bacteria.

50 Billion Plus Friendly Bacteria.

That's got to make my colon party central, eh?

--Marn

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She's mellllllllllllllting - Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 - Back off, Buble - Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - Dispersed - Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 - Nothing comes for free - Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 - None of her business - Friday, Nov. 04, 2011 -


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