I considered cancelling the colonoscopy because I fucked up some things on the prep.

Last time I was very diligent and followed all the rules. But here's some things I did wrong out of carelessness:

- On Friday night, I had a horrible tension headache and took aspirin. You aren't supposed to take aspirin or Advil for a week prior to the colonoscopy, as these can cause bleeding when polyps are cut

- On Friday night, I drank a milkshake and ate two tomato slices. You are not supposed to have milk or anything with seeds for at least 3 days prior (this was 2.5 days prior)

- On Saturday morning, about 48 hours prior, I had an orange soda. You are not supposed to have anything red, orange, or purple for at least 3 days before.

- Late Saturday night, about 32 hours before the colonoscopy, I had some gummy bears. Those are fine, but I ate some red and orange ones.

- Amazingly on Saturday night, I almost fucked up the milk thing again, as I got two ice cream cups for both me and Ben. However, I did myself a favor by forgetting them in the car, and I only discovered it hours later, and threw them away. Only shortly after that did I realize it was a fortunate thing that I forgot them.


Upon consulting with some doctors, I was told that the only real concern was the aspirin, but it only brought on a small additional bleeding risk. I was told to proceed, as the change of harmful bleeding was less than the chance that possibly precancerous polyps could cause an issue by having to wait months to get a new appointment.

At the colonoscopy itself, they were not concerned about any of this. Oddly they were concerned that I drank water 4 1/2 hours before the procedure (which became 5 1/2 because they were running late), because their instructions said "not to drink after midnight". However, they both told me on the phone that I could drink up to 4 hours beforehand, and their afternoon colonoscopy instructions also state you can drink up to 4 hours before. So it made zero sense why they were annoyed. My guess is because they were running behind, they didn't want another thing to worry about.

They said they would "empty my stomach" while I was knocked out, in order to prevent aspiration of the water in there. Transparent to me because I was asleep for it.

Not sure what I'll do next time, as I really don't want to go an absurd number of hours with no water. I was already thirsty as it was.

Anyway I'll worry about this in 3 1/2 years when I do my next one.


Now onto the fun part of battling with my insurance about what they're willing to pay.