by Dave Barry
Formerly LifeHealth Corp
Formerly United Tongue Depressor
Mary reads these statements with no more comprehension than a tree frog pondering the space shuttle. She wonders: What do these numbers mean? Is she supposed to pay any of the amounts shown? Which ones? To whom? What if she can’t pay?
Mary becomes increasingly depressed, and finally decides to seek the help of a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist, after carefully evaluating Mary’s condition to determine that her health insurance includes psychiatric coverage, prescribes a tranquilizer called Coruscant.26 Unfortunately, this drug causes Mary to experience a rare but serious side effect in the form of severe tenderness of the feet.
Mary starts skipping work. She spends most of her days sitting in her Barcalounger, surrounded by piles of benefit explanations, watching TV. Thirty to forty times per day she is exposed to a locally produced commercial for a team of lawyers who have dark suits, a complete set of legal-looking books lined up on professional bookshelves, and a burning desire to fight for the legal rights of whoever is watching daytime television.
Finally Mary decides that the fighting attorneys are talking to her. She calls the number on the screen and makes an appointment. Within hours she has been fitted with orthopedic shoes, crutches, a wheelchair, and a neck brace, and she is the plaintiff in a lawsuit naming, as defendants, every doctor she has ever seen, every drug she has ever taken, every medical lab she has ever been tested by, and the publishers of Woman’s Day.
Mary ultimately receives an out-of-court settlement of $18,000. After the team of fighting lawyers take their fee and deduct their expenses—orthopedic shoes are not cheap—Mary is left with $1,263.47. She is now unemployed, uninsured, and broke, with unpaid medical bills approaching $500,000. She feels sicker than ever, but is terrified about what might happen to her if she gets any more professional health care. She has started to explore alternative healing practices. When we see her last, she has contacted a healing practitioner who claims to have obtained excellent results in cases just like Mary’s. All the practitioner needs is for Mary to bring him $50 cash.
And a live goat.
Now I know what you’re saying. You’re saying: “Dave, you have painted a distorted and inaccurate picture of the American health-care system. Not all patients wind up being as wretched as Mary! Many of them wind up being dead.”
True, but let’s not get nitpicky. The point is, our health-care system is a terrible mess. It’s expensive, wasteful, inefficient, unresponsive, and infested with lawyers. Which is why there has been a big push, in some quarters, to place it under the management of . . .
The federal government.
This is like saying that if your local police department has a corruption problem, the solution is to turn law enforcement over to the Sopranos. Nevertheless, there really are people— intelligent, educated, well-meaning people—who seriously believe that we should let Washington redesign our health-care system. It goes without saying that these people live and work in Washington; that’s the only place where you’re going to find intelligent, educated, well-meaning people who are that stupid.
The rest of the country is not so thrilled about trusting their health care to the same government that produced, for example, the U.S. Tax Code. Most Americans outside of Washington don’t really trust Washington to do anything except screw up. This is the fundamental reason why we have a two-party political system. We put the Republicans in office until they have totally screwed things up, then we vote them out and let the Democrats take their turn totally screwing everything up, then we switch back to the Republicans, and so on, back and forth. It’s like a Ping-Pong game in which neither player ever actually makes contact with the ball.
So to summarize the health-care crisis:• Our current system for providing medical care is insane.
• But a majority of Americans understand that the federal government, if given the opportunity, would figure out a way to make it worse.
• Therefore, the odds are that nothing will be done.
So your best bet, until further notice, is to do what 83 percent of all licensed American physicians do, according to a recent survey: Avoid medical care altogether. This means you need to stay healthy. Exercise regularly, get plenty of rest, avoid contact with humans, and never inhale or open your eyes in a public restroom. Above all, make sure you eat a balanced diet. By which I mean: broccoli and alcohol.
Colonoscopy
This is the only essay in this book that was originally published elsewhere; it ran in the Miami Herald, other newspapers, and on the Internet in 2008. I wanted to include it in this book because it’s one of those rare instances when I wrote something with an actual point.
This essay produced quite a response; I’ll tell you about it when you finish.
OK. You turned fifty. You know you’re supposed to get a colonoscopy. But you haven’t. Here are your reasons:1. You’ve been busy.
2. You don’t have a history of cancer in your family.
3. You haven’t noticed any problems.
4. You don’t want a doctor to stick a tube seventeen thousand feet up your butt.
Let’s examine these reasons one at a time. No, wait, let’s not. Because you and I both know that the only real reason is No. 4. This is natural. The idea of having another human, even a medical human, becoming deeply involved in what is technically known as your “behindular zone” gives you the creeping willies.
I know this because I am like you, except worse. I yield to nobody in the field of being a pathetic weenie medical coward. I become faint and nauseous during even very minor medical procedures, such as making an appointment by phone. It’s much worse when I come into physical contact with the medical profession. More than one doctor’s office has a dent in the floor caused by my forehead striking it seconds after I got a shot.
In 1997, when I turned fifty, everybody told me I should get a colonoscopy. I agreed that I definitely should, but not right away. By following this policy, I reached age fifty-five without having had a colonoscopy. Then I did something so pathetic and embarrassing that I am frankly ashamed to tell you about it.
What happened was, a giant forty-foot replica of a human colon came to Miami Beach. Really. It’s an educational exhibit called the Colossal Colon, and it was on a nationwide tour to promote awareness of colorectal cancer. The idea is, you crawl through the Colossal Colon, and you encounter various educational items in there, such as polyps, cancer, and hemorrhoids the size of regulation volleyballs, and you go, “Whoa, I better find out if I contain any of these things,” and you get a colonoscopy.
If you are a professional humor writer, and there is a giant colon within a two-hundred-mile radius, you are legally obligated to go see it. So I went to Miami Beach and crawled through the Colossal Colon. I wrote a column about it, making tasteless colon jokes. But I also urged everyone to get a colonoscopy. I even, when I emerged from the Colossal Colon, signed a pledge stating that I would get one.
But I didn’t get one. I was a fraud, a hypocrite, a liar. I was practically a member of Congress.
Five more years passed. I turned sixty, and I still hadn’t gotten a colonoscopy. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from my brother Sam, who is ten years younger than I am, but more mature. The e-mail was addressed to me and my middle brother, Phil. It said:
“Dear Brothers,
“I went in for a routine colonoscopy and got the dreaded diagnosis: cancer. We’re told it’s early and that there is a good prognosis that they can get it all out, so, fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that. And of course they told me to tell my siblings to get screened. I imagine you both have.”
Um. Well.
First I called Sam. He was hopeful, but scared. We talked for a while, and when we hung up, I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one p
oint passing briefly through Minneapolis. Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring, and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn’t really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, “HE’S GOING TO STICK A TUBE SEVENTEEN THOUSAND FEET UP YOUR BUTT!”
I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called “MoviPrep,” which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America’s enemies.
I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn’t eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes—and here I am being kind—like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.
The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, “a loose watery bowel movement may result.” This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.
MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don’t want to be too graphic here, but: Have you ever seen a space shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.
After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, “What if I spurt on Andy?” How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.
At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the hell the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.
Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn’t thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.
When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the seventeen-thousand-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, “Dancing Queen” has to be the least appropriate.
“You want me to turn it up?” said Andy, from somewhere behind me.
“Ha-ha,” I said.
And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.
I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was shrieking “Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine . . .”
. . . and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.
But my point is this: In addition to being a pathetic medical weenie, I was a complete moron. For more than a decade I avoided getting a procedure that was, essentially, nothing. There was no pain and, except for the MoviPrep, no discomfort. I was risking my life for nothing.
If my brother Sam had been as stupid as I was—if, when he turned fifty, he had ignored all the medical advice and avoided getting screened—he still would have had cancer. He just wouldn’t have known. And by the time he did know—by the time he felt symptoms—his situation would have been much, much more serious. But because he was a grown-up, the doctors caught the cancer early, and they operated and took it out. Sam is now recovering and eating what he describes as “really, really boring food.” His prognosis is good, and everybody is optimistic, fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that.
Which brings us to you, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms. Over-Fifty-and-Hasn’t-Had-a-Colonoscopy. Here’s the deal: You either have colorectal cancer, or you don’t. If you do, a colonoscopy will enable doctors to find it and do something about it. And if you don’t have cancer, believe me, it’s very reassuring to know you don’t. There is no sane reason for you not to have it done.
I am so eager for you to do this that I am going to induce you with an Exclusive Limited Time Offer. If you, after reading this, get a colonoscopy, let me know by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Dave Barry Colonoscopy Inducement, The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132. I will send you back a certificate, signed by me and suitable for framing if you don’t mind framing a cheesy certificate, stating that you are a grown-up who got a colonoscopy. Accompanying this certificate will be a square of limited-edition custom-printed toilet paper with an image of Miss Paris Hilton on it. You may frame this also, or use it in whatever other way you deem fit.
But even if you don’t want this inducement, please get a colonoscopy. If I can do it, you can do it. Don’t put it off. Just do it.
Be sure to stress that you want the non-ABBA version.
Postscript
This essay got a huge reaction—bigger than anything else I’ve ever written except the time I criticized Neil Diamond, which I will never do again. My colonoscopy story went viral on the Internet; many, many people wrote me to say it inspired them to get colonoscopies. Even now, more than a year later, people keep telling me about their colons. I’ll get on an airplane, and somebody I don’t know, sitting five rows away, will yell, “Dave! I had my colon checked! Everything looks good!”
“Great!” I’ll say, starting to make a thumbs-up gesture, then stopping when I realize that the other passengers might misinterpret it.
Anyway, it was a good thing for some of these people that they got screened, because their doctors found things that needed to be taken care of. Which is why you should get screened, too, if you’re due. Or overdue. Just do it.
p.s. My brother Sam is doing fine.
A Practical, Workable Plan for Saving the Newspaper Business
I Sure Don’t Have One
The American newspaper industry is in serious trouble.
How serious? Consider: In 1971, when I was hired for my first newspaper job, there were 62 million newspaper subscribers in the United States; today, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, there are twelve, an estimated five of whom are dead and therefore unlikely to renew.
What the heck happened?
I can hear you wiseacres answering: “You
already told us what happened. They hired you.”
Fair enough. Some of the blame is definitely mine. Over the years I’ve received at least 62 million letters from irate people declaring their intention to cancel their subscriptions because of something I wrote. Among the groups I have deeply offended are:• Neil Diamond fans;
• People who don’t think it’s funny when you make untrue statements such as that George Washington invented the airplane;
• Cat owners;
• People who insist on being addressed as “doctor” because they have Ph.D.’s, as if these degrees represent an important achievement, rather than a reluctance to leave college;
• Appliance salespeople who try to sell you a service warranty for every damn thing you buy including batteries;
• People who react angrily to criticism of the Lord of the Ring movies, especially the suggestion that you were not totally awed by the walking, talking, kung-fu-fighting trees;27
• Barry Manilow fans;
• . . . and of course
• Lawyers.
This is a very incomplete list of the readers I managed to irritate. I once wrote a column that offended an entire state. Granted, it was North Dakota,28 which has a smaller population than the average New York City public restroom. But still, those unhappy North Dakotans were newspaper readers, and therefore customers. And anybody who knows anything about business knows you should not offend your customers.
Of course that’s part of the problem: The American newspaper industry isn’t run by people who know anything about business. It’s run mostly by English majors, or people who majored in some other academic sector of the gigantic bullshit festival known as “the liberal arts.” We spent our college careers discussing and writing papers about large important books such as Crime and Punishment that often we were unable to physically read more than about 30 percent of because we were busy being college students. Our chief marketable skill, coming out of college, is the ability to write authoritatively about things we don’t necessarily understand.