-Ologies

Last week I was scheduled to confer with a urologist about my elevated psa count. According to my primary, the count had gone from 3.6 to 5.2 in the year since it was last checked. Not an alarming high at 5.2, but the rise in one year was a warning flag. But then I had my blood checked again and the count was 2.8, lower than it had been a year ago. Go figure. So I cancelled my date with the urologist. He'd have been my eighth specialist seen since my medical world came tumbling down, my eighth “-ologist.” About the only one I’ve missed is a proctologist. But then, most doctors have a secondary specialty in proctology, shoving their too-high bills up our rectums. And tomorrow I’m going in for a colonoscopy, my last ever, I hope. I wonder what “-ology” is on the end of the specialist who conducts colonoscopies. So I go to the internet and find out. Amazing what information is available on the net. Usually, it’s a gastroenterologist who does colonoscopies. That would make my ninth “-ologist.” I’m not looking forward to it. I guess I might be looking backward to it, considering where they’re going to stick their camera. Many years ago, right in the doctor’s office I remember having what was called a rigid sigmoidoscopy. Oh, my, was it ever rigid. It was an examination of the first part of my colon, as far in as the rigid scope could go, and was it ever painful. At least they now put one peacefully to sleep for the modern version. So, today, at 4:00, I begin to drink four liters of my prep stuff, a little more than a gallon, eight ounces every fifteen minutes. That means about eight glasses in two hours, punctuated with rapid flights to the commode. Just one joyful medical experience after another.