Prepping...Part One

Almost through the first half of this crazy colonoscopy prep process. Twenty-four hours without real food & too much time getting to know our bathroom. But at least I'm in the home stretch.

Breakfast was a delicious bowl of white grape vegan jello jigglers with seltzer water and coffee. 

I had a mid-morning snack of Café Bustelo vegan jello jigglers. So happy I bought cookie cutters at a dollar store a while back: teddy bear, hippo, elephant, heart, star, and weird pointy circle. 

Lunch and dinner were both disgusting bowls of vegetable stock, oddly the worst part of this experience. 

Started drinking prep mixed with coconut water at 5. It started, uh, working before I was done drinking tonight's liter. 

Now, I'm having dessert in the form of crushed white grape juice ice - genius planning on my part. 

I'm a little loopy from not having any actual food, but other than that, I'm doing really well. And to be honest, the loopiness is welcome as it's makes it much easier to entertain myself through this.

Prepping for Prepping

After years of on-again off-again stomach troubles, my last few months have been filled with gastroenterologist appointments and tests of various kinds. Finally, on Tuesday, I have the big one...a colonoscopy. (Also having another endoscopy, but that's nothing new.) It's obviously not a fun, exciting topic, but I think it's important for people with tummy troubles to know there are others dealing with them, too. I know I'm forever grateful for my Sisterhood of the Spastic Insides for their support.

Since I'm a vegetarian and mostly stick to a vegan whole foods diet, the lists of foods acceptable for colonoscopy prep were troubling: chicken or beef broth, Gatorade, and all the (non-red) Jello your heart desires. The looming 24+ hours of a clear liquid diet were upsetting enough without all this. So I've been obsessing over/planning my menu for weeks. If I'm not going to be eating food, I at least want to "eat" well.

My Vegan Colonoscopy Prep / Clear Liquid Diet Menu

• Flavored seltzer water 
• Vegetable stock 
• Coconut water (for mixing with the Miralax prep - Gatorade? No thanks) 
• Vita Coco sports drinks 
• White grape juice 
• Café Bustelo 
• Coffee vegan jello 
• Grape vegan jello 
• Grape juice slushies 
• Multiple types of tea

I expect that I'm overplanning here, but I want to have options. This only has to keep me functional until I leave work at noon. At home I can lounge and nap until the real fun begins. More on that later.