my weekly column

I write a weekly column for the WS Shopper News, which is distributed in the News Sentinel every Monday. I thought I'd put my column here as well and you can read it or skip it. You may actually find it fun. So here goes:

t’s a camera, but you don’t have to smile

By Joe Calderon

Just recently I joined an exclusive club. Its roster of members includes such notables as Katie Couric and President Bush.

Early in the morning the day of my picture session, I drove to one of those two big brick buildings at the far end of Turkey Creek to have my picture taken. Couric had it done on TV, incredibly

It wasn’t exactly a Kodak moment. I was there for a colonoscopy, something I’d dodged for about 12 years by bullying my doctors when they warned it was the smart thing to do.

It took moving to Tennessee to come up against a doctor who wasn’t going to be bullied. Well, that and the fact that just before I left California for the Volunteer State, I learned one of my colleagues, a relatively young guy with two kids, had developed colon cancer that had spread to his liver.

The last time I saw him, this health nut who used to bicycle the levees around our town every day had lost more than 40 pounds and had surrendered a nice head of hair to chemo treatments.

So this time, when the doctor lectured, I listened.

Now, let me tell you about colonoscopies. They’re not so bad. You lie on a table and they knock you out and the next thing you know you wake up and they’re all smiling at you and telling you to go home. Easy.

The preparation for the colonoscopy is another thing altogether. It starts three days before the procedure with a three-capsule dose of a strong laxative before bedtime. The next day you embark on what they call a low-residue diet. Not bad so far.

That night you take another three laxative capsules. The fun actually begins the next day, when you embark on a clear-liquids diet. By about 3 p.m., when the legs of chairs begin to look tasty, you are required to drink an entire bottle of something vile called Magnesium Citrate, mixed with Sprite. Mixing it with soda supposedly makes it tastier, but all it does is extend the agony of drinking it.. By 6 p.m. you’re mixing and downing a generous dose of some foul chemical powder called Glycolax mixed with a 32-ounce bottle of a power drink. Three hours later, you drink another 10-ounce bottle of Magnesium Citrate and Sprite. And just in case you’re not totally wiped out, you take another three laxative capsules.

Now you’re ready for a colonoscopy.

But you know what? It’s worth it – the whole thing – for the peace of mind it brings.

There are lots of things I like about Knox County, but one of the best is the availability and choices we have in health care. You appreciate that stuff when you’ve just come from a town where there is only one hospital whose emergency room is the butt of jokes and the osteopaths outnumber the MD’s because doctors just don’t want to live there.

Here, you begin to appreciate that there are many hospitals, many of them with stellar reputations, just a short drive away. And that there are caring doctors, both general practitioners and specialists, to keep you in good health. That’s something to smile about.

Joe Calderon is a retired editor from California who has survived quadruple bypass surgery, gall bladder surgery, cataract surgery and retinal laser treatments, and keeps going back for more. Email Calderon at cjoe357@gmail.com