Well, to be fair, the guy who said his wife had called the ER then
said, "But then, my wife doesn't handle pain well.  At all.  I'm sure
she could never get up from a fall off a bike and get right on the
bike again.  Whereas I know you could, so I'm sure you'll be fine."

Paraphrasing, of course.  

It's especially scary because my bowels are already so touchy, getting
all bloated and/or painful at the slightest provocation (ie, eating
food, or then again not eating food).  So I can only imagine how angry
my colon will be at this invasion!

It's hard for me to imagine it's cancer -- I mean, I'm 28, that seems
so young.  Easier for me to imagine an ulcer, I suppose, although I
don't really know what that would imply as far as treatment goes.

Realistically, it could be either, or I suppose something entirely
different.

I think I still have a fair amount of "I'm young, so I'm invincible"
going ... we'll see what the results are and how they affect that
attitude.

I guess you, of all people, would definitely know how scary it is.  I
take heart from your bravery.

I wonder if I'm taking something else.  The instructions (I don't have
them in front of me right now) said something about buying several
things (all available over the counter) and taking them in a certain
order, but the main thing I remember is there was a lot of Gatorade
involved.  You mixed something in with the Gatorade.  I will need to
drink 24 fl oz of Gatorade in the afternoon over a 20 min window, and
then again early in the morning.

They also said to avoid red foods (presumably because they look like
blood?).  But while I'm on a clear liquids regime the whole previous
day, that apparently includes apple juice, which might just save me.

Hah!

Thanks.  They've warned me against working or driving that entire day.
I found out this will count as a sick day rather than a vacation day,
so I will be taking the whole day to recover.  I figure with all the
crap (no pun intended) I've been through, it's not a bad idea to take
it easy, anyway.

You're so right.  Anyway, it's not like I have a choice =)

Okay, I do, I suppose I could wuss out and not get the procedure done,
but then I wouldn't know if the procedure would have found something,
and that seems much worse to me.

The new medicine I'm on now is making me feel icky, kind of
light-headed, dizzy, slight vertigo.  Yuck.  I'm pretty sure that if
this continues, I'd rather have the bowel pain than this.  We shall
see.

Purring very loudly and continuously for you.  I had a colonoscopy in
Japan (of course) at a large hospital.  As everyone has said, the
procedure itself is not bad-- in fact they had the screen turned so I
could see my insides and I thought it was very interesting!  You can be
happy, though, that you aren't here where everything is done in a kind
of herd mentality.  (This is to make you laugh and be thankful for what
you've got.)

All the people to get a colonoscopy that day gathered at 8:00 in the
hospital, we got a short lecture, then were each given a huge pitcher
of stuff to drink.  Then we all were told "keep walking and it will
work faster".  So we all paced around and around the waiting room,
grinning at each other because we knew what everyone was doing!  One
older man helped us all out immensely by bringing rock candy (just huge
crystals of white sugar).  It was not so bad downing the liquid when we
had that in our mouths.  The good thing about the herd mentality is
that you can all encourage each other!

I had a problem of my blood pressure dropping suddenly at the very
beginning of drinking the liquid.  Got all shaky and faint.  However,
in about half an hour I was up and walking with everyone else.
Apparently that is not an uncommon reaction, so since you are doing
this at home don't be alarmed if you get all cold and shaky for a
while.  It will go away.

Praying that the results will help you get better.
PRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Love from Japan,
Cantate