With the awkward introduction over, Dr Farnese brought Diana up to speed and they discussed my case as if I was not there. Dr Farnese began, “Karl has some bleeding that I think is low in his GI tract and we are going to try to pinpoint it without a colonoscopy. I am hoping that between a thorough digital exam and if needed, using the rigid proctoscope, we will be able to locate it.”

I could see Diana to my side and looked up at her. She was nodding her head with a concerned look on her face as she took this in and became a little wide eyed when she heard about the proctoscopy. She asked some questions. “Have you had him take anything to relax him for the proctoscopy?”

”No, I wanted to try to avoid that if possible because of liability given then unorthodox setting we are conducting this in, but I have some Valium suppositories if we need to do that.”

”I see. And when you examined him internally last week, you could not detect anything? Did you look with the anoscope in the office?”

”I could not feel anything with my finger. The walls of his rectum were smooth. I didn’t go forward with any anoscopy then because I could tell he had a bit of difficulty tolerating my finger.”

Diana said that with her experience with children and teens, she was used to coaching patients through difficult procedures. She then looked down and spoke to me, “Don’t worry sweety , I will help you through this.”

I took this in and was somewhat unfamiliar with the language, but understood enough to become quite nervous at the adjective, “rigid” and started to understand better my earlier glimpse of the long shiny thick silver tube with the blunt tip that was on the tray among the other supplies.

Diana had a few more questions. “Has he been prepped? When was his last BM?”

”No, he’s not prepped, but I have some items for an enema and some glycerin and Dulcolax suppositories if needed. I have cleared my schedule for the afternoon in case we need to administer those. I really appreciate you freeing up your whole afternoon as well, Diana.”

I had not had a bowel movement since the day before and did not volunteer that, as the question was dropped, but now I was very worried that they would not find me clean inside and that I was very likely going to get an enema. That I was going to be there for most of the afternoon had me more worried. I wanted to be home at this point and that was looking to be quite a ways off.