I’ve no symptoms, no blood, no pain, no nothing. I’m as regular as clockwork, honey.’
She sniffed. ‘That’s nice to know,’ she said.
‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘If it wasn’t for the silly marker thing, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. The doctor who’s doing the procedure is one of the best in the country. She was trained in the States and she said that even if there was a problem, they’d probably be able to nip it in the bud there and then.’
‘It’s a woman doctor?’
‘Don’t go all sexist on me, honey. She’s very highly regarded.’
Noy giggled. ‘A woman is going to put a camera up your…’ She giggled again.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘Oh my Buddha,’ she said.
‘She said the camera she uses has a laser attachment that can zap anything that looks like it might be a problem,’ I said. ‘But she said exactly what I’ve told you, more often than not the marker tends to be a false positive.’
She stopped hugging me and looked at me, her eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘You should have told me before,’ she said.
‘I know, and I’m sorry.’
‘I’m coming with you, tomorrow,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I want to. ‘ She smiled. ‘I want to meet the woman who is going to shove a camera up my husband’s…’ She started giggling again.
CHAPTER 37
I got to the hospital at just before nine o’clock in the morning. I persuaded Noy not to go with me because I didn’t want to make a big thing of it. It was a simple procedure, in and out and then home. If she had come with me it would have been something bigger, something more important, and I didn’t want to feel that it was anything other than a check-up.
Noy understood. Bless her. She kissed me on the cheek and wished me luck and I went downstairs and caught a taxi.
I was shown to a changing room where I took off my clothes put on a pale blue hospital robe. I was shown through to another room where a pretty nurse who looked about fifteen years old sat me down in a chair and put a needle into a vein in my left arm and held it in place with a strip of sticking plaster. There were two other patients there, a Thai man in his seventies and an obese Arab who kept wiping his face with a large white handkerchief.
Dr Ma-lee arrived fifteen minutes after I’d been prepped. She was wearing surgical scrubs and her long hair was tucked back in a net. She checked the needle and asked me how the cleansing had gone.
Ah yes, the cleansing.
I’d gone onto the internet to check out what was in store for me and pretty much everything I’d read suggested that the preparation was a lot more uncomfortable than the procedure. I had to drink the eight pints of solution that the hospital had given me, then wait until the eight pints had passed through me, taking pretty much everything with it.
It was not pleasant.
Not pleasant at all.
The first intestinal rumblings began about six hours after I’d finished the last drop and I spent a further two hours in the bathroom.
But I just smiled and nodded and told Dr Ma-lee that the cleansing had gone just fine.
She explained the procedure again and asked me if I had any concerns.
Any concerns?
Well, yes, actually. I was concerned that there might be a tumour the size of a grapefruit in my gut and that I’d be dead by the end of the year because, please God, I didn’t want to die.
‘No, I’m good,’ I said, and smiled confidently.
‘It’s going to be fine, Khun Bob,’ she said, and patted the arm that didn’t have a needle in it.
I guess my smile wasn’t as confident as I thought.
She went away and five minutes later two female orderlies in pale green scrubs came in pushing a gurney. They asked me to lie down and they wheeled me down a corridor into an operating room. Dr Ma-lee was there. She’d put on a cap that matched her scrubs and was wearing surgical gloves. She asked me to lie on my side and then she attached a hypodermic to the needle in my arm and I felt a coldness spread along it and across my chest and then I felt warm and safe and happy, so happy that I actually giggled.
I felt a draught as a nurse loosened my robe and I was still giggling as she inserted the camera and it began its twenty-two-foot voyage of discovery.
CHAPTER 38
I wasn’t laughing when I was wheeled into the recovery room, but I wasn’t feeling any pain, either. I’d been conscious for the whole procedure, and for most of the time had been able to watch the camera’s progress in and out of my digestive tract. Even I could see that my colon was in good shape, smooth and pink and glossy. I had the colon of a twenty-five-year old, Dr Ma-lee said at one point.
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling and sighed. It was over. And I was pretty sure that everything was okay. Now I just wanted to go home.
After about fifteen minutes, Dr Ma-lee came to see me. She’d taken off her hairnet but she was still wearing her scrubs. She gave me a beaming smile. ‘No problems at all,’ she said.
‘That’s a relief,’ I said.
And it was.
‘I’d recommend that you have another colonoscopy in five years,’ she said.
‘I’ll put it in my diary,’ I said.
‘Get yourself checked every five years and I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll never have a major problem with your colon,’ she said. ‘Once you get to your age, five-year checks are a life-saver.’ She placed a DVD on the table next to my gurney. ‘Here’s a copy of the recording we made.’
‘Thanks, doc,’ I said. ‘Can I go home now?’
‘Isn’t your wife coming to get you?’
‘I don’t want her to see me in hospital,’ I said.
‘Very macho,’ she said.
‘She doesn’t like hospitals much,’ I said.
And to be honest, neither do I.
‘Just be careful,’ she said. ‘You might find you’re a bit unsteady on your feet for a while.’ She flashed me another beaming smile and left me to it.
I actually didn’t feel too bad.
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, took a deep breath and stood up.
I was fine.
I was fit, I was healthy, I was going to live for ever.
By the time I’d changed into my clothes I felt even better.
I left the hospital and climbed into a taxi and told the driver where I wanted to go. Home.
He drove away from the hospital and turned right onto Sukhumvit Soi 3. I looked at the DVD that the doctor had given me and wondered what I was supposed to do with it? Did people actually watch them? Did they sit down with a cup of coffee or a beer and revisit the journey through their intestines? Did they invite their friends and family
