A Short Follow-Up to my Post on the Peak-End Rule as it Applies to My Colonoscopy This Morning
This morning I had my five year colonoscopy check-up. Those of you who have had one or more know that the prep is somewhere between unpleasant and dreadful. My preps last for full two days for certain TMI reasons, but also because 20 years ago, I had the traumatic experience of waking up after the procedure to the following verdict from my GI doctor at the time:
“We couldn’t see everything we wanted. My motto is that an incomplete colonoscopy is like no colonoscopy at all.”
That’s a soul-crushing motto that no one should ever have to hear!
Since then, I’ve prepped with great rigor. My own motto has been “Damn the discomforts––Full Speed Ahead.”1
Right now, a few hours after being picked up by my wife and taken home to coffee and solid food after 48 hours of abstinence, I am ecstatic that it’s over and actually feel a little giddy. The sweet mindless sleep of the anesthetic and then waking up an hour later was the end of the experience and that ending is what now dominates my mind. The much longer preceding prep now seems trivial and unimportant. (cf. Peak-End Rule)
I was advised not to make any important decisions for the rest of today, so if this post misfires, it’s the Propofol anesthetic talking.
P.S. A prep hack I find helpful is to saturate my mouth with Dentyne Ice gum for a few minutes so that my taste buds are temporarily disabled. Prevents me from tasting the icky solutions I must drink.
Below is the original Peak-End Rule post, if you missed it. (Where I promised not to use Colonoscopies as an example, but I’ve now changed my mind/broken my promise!)
https://robertsdavidn.substack.com/p/the-peak-end-rule
“Damn the torpedoes-––Full Speed Ahead!” is a famous battle cry spoken by David Farragut, Admiral of the victorious Union forces at the 1864 battle of Mobile Bay, after one of his ships had been hit by a mine, then known as a torpedo.
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The thing I really dread, and I’m about due again. I hadn’t thought of the gum, but how long does that last? Because you have to drink a gallon of that awful liquid!!!
You have my sympathy, but I'll stop short of sharing colonoscopy stories.