When I opened the bottle the smell hit my nose strong putrid, sense telling me toxic. I followed the pharmacist’s advice and braced my tongue for a sippp, awful even diluted and on the rocks, slow fade to aftertaste worse than diet soda. An hour later, the poison began to empty my stomach with a rapid succession of toilet trips. I could only get down half of the prescription, nausea rising, but I was sure it had done its job and cleared my innards clean. At the appointment, a nurse led me from the waiting room to a changing room, where she gave me a light blue robe that opened at the back. When I was dressed, she led me to the doctor’s examination table.

“Okay, are you ready? Did you drink all of the MiraLAX?” asked the doctor with an empathetic smile.

“Yes, I’m ready, definitely empty.”

“Great, well this should be easy then. Lie down on the bed here, and Varenka will give you an IV for some medication that will make this procedure go smoothly. You won’t feel much.”

The nurse looked at the bottom of my forearm, tapping it twice with her index and middle finger, “make a fist please,” tourniquet tied tight around my bicep, skinpinch, veins bulging, she cleaned and cooled the bottom of my forearm with an alcohol wipe, then unwrapped the IV needle, intimidating, much longer than the ones for blood tests.

“Okay, are you ready?” she asked. I nodded, “one,” closed my eyes, “two,” turned my head, “three,” quick pinprick, inserted an inch or so ow adjusted, taped, and tourniquet untied. 

“This is just a flush of saline. It might feel cold.”

Shiver through my arm, then she connected my veins to the bags of liquid hanging over my head.

“Okay, now can I have you lie on your right side,” ordered the doctor. Cricklecrackle table paper, “Great, now draw your knees in towards your chest.”

I adjusted my hips and knees, full moon exposition, crackle.

“Okay, now I’m going to give you the sedative, it won’t put you out, but it will make you numb.”

Then the opposite of the saline, vein ablaze, blench clench, swallow, burning sting tingle, slowly faded to warmth, numb, and I am hazy, but not asleep, the wall is wavy.

“Okay, now the camera is going to enter. This may hurt slightly. Raise your hand if you need me to stop.”

Prodding pushed past new threshold of discomfort. Why am I conscious for this? I felt air inside, instinct to flatulate on doctor, but impossible, plugged. Wavy wall waves woozy woozles and pink heffalumps. Camera further, light down the tunnel, pushing pain to new places, pang by pang along the path of my large in test in, up my left side, around the corner, “almost there,” said the doctor, contract and seize, ow, relax, seize, ow, relax, distend… release, relax. Pain passed, with gas to follow. Relief.

“Alright, you’re all done.”

After a short woazy wait I got up off the table, but reeled to one side as I tried to walk, so I sat back down. “Take your time, don’t get up too fast,” said the nurse. I looked at the ground and let the blood flow back to my head, regaining orientation. Now ready, my father helped me walk into the doctor’s office to look at the results. We sat down in chairs in front of his desk, he sat behind with his computer monitor, which he turned so that we could see.

“So from these lesions that you can see here, it appears that you have inflammatory conditions in your bowels, which leads me to think that what you have is Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which can be either Crohn’s disease or Colitis.”

Two C words, neither of which I had heard of, but thankfully not the ancer of which I was most afraid.

“See these ulcers here, and here? Those are in your sigmoid and descending colon. And then we see some development here in the ascending colon. Those are all parts of your colon, your large intestine. If inflammation in the small intestine develops, then it would look like Crohn’s disease. From the limited view I got of your small intestine, it appears to be clean, but there are a couple of clear problem areas in your colon. I’ll look more closely at these visuals when we get the biopsy results tomorrow, and I’ll let you know if I find anything else.”

“And then you’ll know if it’s Crohn’s or Colitis?” asked my father.

“That’s a tough distinction to make sometimes. We can’t always make a determinative diagnosis. You can think of Inflammatory Bowel Disease like a spectrum, from small to large intestine, Crohn’s to colitis, it appears you fall on the colitis side, but it could develop into Crohn’s.”

“I’ve never heard of them, are they rare diseases?” asked father.

“They are rare, but diagnoses have been increasing steadily over the past few decades,” he replied while typing something on his keyboard.

“How serious are they?”

“They can become serious, but usually we can figure out a medication regimen to keep patients healthy and hopefully get them to remission. We have a very good chance in your case because we caught it early. Some people wait and don’t talk to their family or doctor about their symptoms because it’s embarrassing, which is understandable, who wants to tell people about their diarrhea? But then the disease has time to develop, and we have to use more aggressive treatment options. Fortunately, your disease is in its beginning stages, and you’re young and in good shape otherwise, so the numbers are on your side.”

Probably would’ve waited longer if it wasn’t affecting my soccer performance.

“So it will go away after the medication?” I asked.

“No, it’s a chronic condition, but we will keep it under control. That’s why it’s important to stay regular with your medications. I’m going to write you a prescription for mesalamine, which is brand-named Asacol.”

He wrote out the prescription, “It’s a benign anti-inflammatory, there are usually no side effects.”

He handed the small piece of paper to my father, and handed me a brochure titled “Living with IBD.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, I know it’s not the best news, but it’s not the worst either, and I’m confident we can get you to long-term remission. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.” We shook his hands. My dad and I walked out and started in the direction of the pharmacy.

Disease, no more ease, difficulties. Brochure: “If you feel overwhelmed and scared right now, that’s only natural.” But I’m not scared, it’s not cancer, so modern medicine will fix me, I’m sure. I’m still in good shape. All I need are some pills to put everything back into balance, and then I’ll play soccer and get into really good shape, and the disease won’t be able to compete with my body’s immune system.

Empty stomach grumbled. BLTs are basic normal food, dad and I stopped at Hot Bagels before going to the pharmacy. The chewing felt good for my jaw after not using it. The sandwich tasted delicious, everything does when you’re famished. But ow, digesting, oww, like I swallowed a sea urchin. Stop and sit on a stranger’s stoop to let the sandwich digest, should’ve started with something soft like creamy peanut butter and honey.

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