What does it take — that is, how mature and sophisticated a civilisation — for one person to get a colonoscopy?

Will a colonoscopy increase or decrease my chances of developing arteriosclerosis and heart attacks?  Obesity?

I’ve hit that magic age, past 50, where my medical healthcare professionals wish I get a colonoscopy.

Somewhere between the interests of an ENT doctor (general otolaryngology) and a urologist sits the giant worm of an internal body part that interests the gastroenterologist: a colon; not a semicolon.

In the near future, I will drink the fluid that contains the chemicals that encourage my gastrointestinal tract to flush itself clear of semisolids.

Then, under the dreamy, twilight world of anesthesia, I’ll submit my body to the medical procedure of being scoped for abdominal abnormalities.

Polyps, you say…not an ellipse in a solipsist?

“Polyps” sounds like the name of a GrecoRoman deity, the offspring of a Hydra and Cyclops, perhaps, or simply Polyphemus himself.

Ah, to lie there like a cadaver in medical school while poked, probed and analysed like a crashlanded space alien!

One can hardly wait for the experience, can one?!

Shall I put on my tinfoil hat and say, in a whispered conspiratorial voice, “You know, don’t you, that colonoscopies are the government’s way of attaching tracking devices to your body that can’t be easily removed by mere amateurs!”?

The fictional possibilities are fun to imagine.

There are millions of ways to die, including under anesthesia.

There are millions of ways to live the rest of your life as a vegetable, including having seizures under anesthesia.

How often does a scope perforate the GI tract?

How often does a GI tract reveal cancerous growths?

Even better, how often do colonoscopies reveal nothing out of the ordinary?

I’m placing my bets on common outcome of the last question.

And, after recovering from my twilight sleep, I hope my gut flora returns to its healthy state once again.

Now, if I can just change my dietary intake and lose a few stones while increasing my low-impact exercising!