[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ollowing the Facebook play-by-play on my colonoscopy last week, my friend Dan Kassis sent me this poem. His 
Tom wrote this for his high school class alumni newsletter. And now, in honor of all those whose gastroenterologist has gone the wrong way up the exit ramp, The Christmas Colonoscopy.
T’was two weeks before Christmas
When I got the bad news.
Five years had passed
Since my ego was last bruised.How quickly time went by
Since I lay on my side.
And lost all my dignity
When I went for that ride.So I’m back in this place
and in the very same bed.
With visions of sugar prunes
dancing in my head.The Fleet did it’s job,
I’m all purged now and prepped.
In angst and trepidation
I await the next step.When what to my wondering
eyes should appear…
Why, it’s smirking nurse Ratchet
and her scary sneer.Her assistant was cheery
As she recited my risks…
Now hurting, now bleeding,
Now impacted discs.I moaned and I groaned
And tried to make light.
But this humorless nurse
just gave me a fright.She came into the room
Carrying the tube,
A screen on one end,
enclosed in a cube.It looped ’round her neck
three times I was sure.
She seemed way too eager
to start on my tour.I pointed past my shoulder
as the tube dragged on the floor,
and suggested in the future
she might use the back door.She chuckled and snorted
and started her song:
“Believe me when I say,
That’s been the plan all along!”I voiced a complaint
Then she said with a glare,
“If you say any more
You’ll get the tube that is square!”With my IV in place
I started to doze
And thought about Santa
As up the chimney he rose.My doc looked like Santa
And I heard him say,
“Merry Christmas to you,
Up, Up and Awayyyyyyy!”The End (As it were…)
And to all, a good night.
