A bane of my family medical history, about every 18-24 months I get scheduled for a BE and in just a few hours, after the onerous prep I've just endured with the laxatives that are still expressing themselves inside of me and the fact that I haven't eaten in the last 26 hours, this is always a terrible experience. It would be so much easier if there was some sort, any sort, of pleasure in what is about to happen. But if you've ever gone through the prep that generates the incessant diarrhea for seemingly hours on end, if you rectum didn't burn from the frequent flushing out of everything you've eaten the last few days out of you, and if you had some energy, any energy, things might be different.

But the fact of the matter is that when I get to the xray lab at 9 am I am going to be in considerable pain from the prep, the cramping from the oral laxatives will still be there to some extent, and that damn suppository I have to insert two hours before the exam that does nothing but make me even more raw then all of the laxatives in the past 12 hours, it is hell to pay. What none of the articles on the net describe is that you feel sick when you get to the lab if you've actually done the prep properly. Imagine having just gone through the worst kind of stomach and intestinal flu you've ever had, knowing that they are going to use high pressured water and barium and blow it right back up your insides. That the point at which you've expelled material to the point that your rectum and anus are now raw is going to receive a large nozzle that will cause your rectum to expand to a degree you may have never experienced before and that once it is in place, they expand a balloon inside of you to keep it there!

By the time I get to the facility I will pretty much be a mess. I mean you don't go to one of these tests in anything but lose fitting clothing that puts as little pressure on yor abdomen as possible. I'm already nauseous from the prep and considerably weak because I have almost nothing left in my system food wise. I'll feel terrible and look terrible all at the same time. And it is always the same thing, the cheerful female radiology tech who calls out my name in the waiting area and asks how I'm doing, knowing that the question doesn't really matter. Her goal, if my system is clear, is to get me ready for the exam.

She'll take me to the changing closet that I can only just drag myself into and hand me the gown with the instruction "Take everything off, put on the gown, open in the back" and she'll slide the curtain closed. In my disheveled state inside that tiny closet I'll slowly strip down to my nakedness in a very sickly sort of manner. I don't want to do this quickly, I don't want this test. After I've got everything off I'll open the gown and pull it around me but leave the ties untied so that again there is as little encumbrance as possible. The test is bad enough and I don't want to feel encumbered.

I'll open the curtain and she'll be standing there waiting for me, pointing to the next door across the hall where all of this is going to unfold. Just a few feet inside and there is the xray table in the middle in the darkened room with the xray head positioned over the center. At the foot of the table is an IV stand extended about 7 feet. Because of the shape of my colon, the height of the bag is a bit higher then normal. By now, I'll be a wreck, weak beyond measure, some remaining cramping from the prep, and my entire anus and rectum on fire from the prep. They don't tell you this stuff on the net, but the radiology techs know this is the worst of all possible exams. They try and be cheerful, but to a person they've told me they hate what they have to do.

The female tech will direct me on to the table with my bottom on the water absorbent pad and head on the pillow and tell me she is going to do a scout xray first. She'll ask if I did the prep but she'll already know that I have or I wouldn't be in such bad shape. She'll snap the image and disappear while I lay on the cold metal table and anxiously wait for what I know is about to happen. Sure enough, in about five minutes she'll return from the processing room and declare that I am clear and that we are about to begin and to "wait right here."

She'll walk back out of the room to a side area and then return with this huge 3 quarter enema bag filled with this while liquid with an attached clear hose and brown inflatable nozzle, the diameter of a dime. "Now I know this is going to hurt, but I have no choice but to give this to you" and I'll know at that moment that all hell is going to break lose. No matter how much KY she puts on the nozzle, we both know this is going to be bad. "Roll on to your left side" she'll say as she hangs the bag on the IV stand and then elevates it another foot, taking the hose and nozzle off of the stand and stretching it out so that it is apparent that the barium fluid is clipped off just behind the brown nozzle. She'll squeeze the KY onto a paper towel liberally and then roll the nozzle with the clear balloon and air pillow pump around the paper and then wrap the paper around the nozzle so that it is exceedingly well lubricated, probably a half an inch or so of the thick clear lubricant. She'll put the nozzle down and come up behind and roll the top of the loose fitting exam gown away from my right hip so that I am exposed. "Pull your right left up to your chest and keep your left leg straight" she say and as I do that she'll note just how raw my rectum and anus are. "I know you are so raw down there I hate to have to do this to you" is pretty much the standard story that she'll repeat.

As she reaches to the foot of the table and grabs the lubricated nozzle, I'll tighten up. I can't help it. The pain for what is about to happen is going to happen Now. With her left hand she'll separate my left and right buttocks and if she is an old pro at this, she'll slide this monster nozzle in me in a single gut wrenching rush that will leave me gasping for air. Then, a command of "ok I'm inflating the balloon now" and there will be this huge spike in pain as the balloon is inflated to the size of a golf ball. If it weren't for the sensitivity down there from all of the prep, it probably wouldn't be as bad. But this is awful, it feels like someone has pushed a crowbar inside my rectum and the expanded balloon won't let it move. Even before the start of the enema itself, the nauseau will already be spiking back as will the cramps.

Then, when the doctor comes in, and this is the worst of the worst, he'll direct the tech to begin releasing barium and I'll have the further spike in nausea and cramping all over again. And it will get progressively worse, to the point that it won't even matter what mental state I'm in, I'll be at their mercy. Too weak to fight, too nausous to move, and in too much pain to do anything other then groan when I am twisted into the multiple positions they'll have me in, with an ever increasing amount of barium poured inside of me from five feet above me. Just a terrible morning, about 90 minutes worth for the actual exam itself.