Shoot ‘em up

Does your pawis smell like lechon droppings? Are your arteries as clogged as EDSA during the holidays? Is “bursting at the seams” your fashion statement for the New Year?

Then you might want to consider getting into shape. And that shape is not that of a bowling pin.

What? Of course not! I’m not talking about exercise. God forbid, who has time for that!? Especially when you’ve got marathon all-night sessions of catching up to do with your favorite TV shows on pirated DVDs. Get your priorities straight.

So if you’re willing to undergo a little electrocution, a little water torture and a little violation of your dignity, then I recommend you undergo a colonic irrigation and electrical muscle therapy. Here are some journeys into my anatomy from my upcoming book.

DO YOU LIKE IT WET?

A colonic irrigation is an alternative medical procedure that involves shooting large amounts of warm water into a bodily orifice — an orifice from which you usually prefer to have things shot out of. After your orifice is full of it (the liquid, I mean), the fluid is then expurgated back through the tube along with the informal settlers from your intestinal tract. In short, it is like taking a dump in the opposite direction.

I highly recommend getting a colonic irrigation. Just think of it as a post-holiday gift to have a hundred-foot tube shoved up your behind. A colonic has the effect of flushing out impacted fecal matter, toxins, mucous, parasites and various alien civilizations that have built up in your colon over the passage of time. A colonic is especially important if you’ve been storing up all the crap that politicians have been dishing out in preparation for the 2013 elections.

According to some alternative health practitioners, if your colon does not completely eliminate the wastes that are squatting inside, this could lead to a plethora of health problems, from bad breath and migraine to acne, joint pains and irritable bowel syndrome (although I guess shooting water into your rectum could make it quite irritable as well).

Once the colonic therapist dragged me kicking, screaming and involuntarily peeing away from my wife, I was shoved into the colonic room — a sound-proof, bomb-proof and fool-proof (because only fools would enter this room) that looked suspiciously looked like it had been used for military interrogations.

After the therapist explained to me repeatedly that they could not perform the colonic irrigation while wearing underwear, I reluctantly peeled off my clothes and donned the stylish hospital gown that strategically exposed my pwet cleavage. 

Relax, I told myself: I’ve been Brazilian waxed. How bad could this be? Then I saw my therapist slip on a pair of thin rubber gloves, whip out a bottle of petroleum jelly and lather it all over a tube that resembled a weapon of mass destruction. My sphincter puckered up violently.

“Is this your first time?” the therapist asked me in a pleasing bedroom voice as she pried apart my legs with a crowbar. “I refuse to answer that question without legal counsel,” I politely replied.

“During the procedure,” the therapist said as she attached the weapon of mass destruction to a tube, “you are not supposed to push, to pee or to poo.” She lifted before my face the lubricated weapon of mass destruction. “This is the speculum.” So the weapon of mass destruction had a name, I thought. “When I insert this into your rectum, make sure to breathe deeply and relax” Funny, that’s the same advice they gave me in the Saudi prison. 

“Remember,” the therapist stressed as she fastened the speculum securely to my nether region, “the longer you can hold it, the better.” This is generally good advice for the nether regions, I thought. The therapist opened a nozzle and a stream of warm water flowed where no warm water has flowed before.

I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and repeated to myself several hundred times: Getting a colonic doesn’t make me less of a man. 

“Bottoms up!” the therapist joked. (No, she didn’t really say that. But I wish she had.)

After there was enough water inside my colon to irrigate the Banaue rice terraces, I told the therapist I was about to blow. “Please do this quickly,” I begged. “I might explode into a pile of pus, bile and pink parts.”

When I finally released all the debris into a tube, I felt a gush of warm water exit my rectum followed by a stream of trapped gas that would probably solve our country’s power shortage. While the gush of stubborn fecal matter evacuated my system, the therapist gently massaged my stomach to dislodge any more recalcitrant matter that had been in my colon since prehistoric times.   

Since the heavily fortified colonic room did not have cable TV, there was a viewing tube (yes, seriously) where you could fondly reminisce over the remnants of your last 10,000 dinners while the therapist gives you (optional) commentary. This was archaeology in action. The nurse excitedly pointed out the hardened fecal matter as it zipped by (excitement was not an emotion I could feel at that exact moment).

“See that dark and viscous piece of black gook coming out? That’s the accumulated cartilage of the meat you’ve eaten from before you became vegetarian.” From before I became a vegetarian? I thought. That cartilage has stayed long enough in my colon to raise a family!

After I had flushed out all the liquid from my colon, I could finally breathe easier (well, as easily as you could with a speculum stuck up your butt). “Can you kindly detach me now before my colon goes on strike?”

The therapist threw me a bemused look. “That was just the first irrigation. It only softened up your bowels,” she stressed while pressing down on the sides of my abdomen. “We need to do this several more times.”

It might have been gas but I swear I could hear my colon scream.

Two hundred and forty-seven irrigations and five adult diapers later, after I had flushed out several hundred lechons of Christmases past, undigested vegetables, and hardened fecal matter that could be used as construction material, the therapist finally detached the speculum from my rectum and invited me to take a seat on the neighboring industrial-strength toilet bowl.

Once I had cleaned my backside with Zonrox, I thanked her for her courage and awarded her a medal of valor. Then I dismounted that toilet bowl with an extra swing to my step. No doubt that extra swing was because I had shed a few pounds of impacted fecal matter. But it was probably also because of the petroleum jelly.

Before I left, the therapist reminded me that I still needed to return for several more irrigations. It appears that my colonic session had only worked off the upper part of my colon. But it would still take a few more sessions to fully rid myself of the squatter syndicates entrenched in my innards.

That confirms what my wife has always suspected about me: I’m just full of s&^*.

SHOCK IT TO ME

The visit to the slimming therapist began with a full-body analysis of my general health (or lack thereof). Once the consultant did some gentle poking around to find out if I had metal objects tucked away in any orifice that might have been left behind during my colonic irrigation, an electrode sensor was fastened to my right foot to measure my water distribution, muscle tone and body fat.  

As a result of my electroshock therapy, the consultant advised me to undergo their Omnivital Lymphatic treatment. Apparently, the lymphatic system is like the EDSA of our bodies — it is not only a highway where fat-soluble vitamins are carried into our blood, but the lymphatic system also protects us from the terrorist attacks of foreign cells, microbes, bacteria, and Chinese knock-offs. For those of us who have had a love-hate relationship with our excess fat and stress, our lymphatic systems looks like EDSA during holiday traffic, which leaves us easily tired, more prone to sickness and more sluggish than the Ombudsman at resolving cases.  

The first part of the treatment involved zapping the tasteful areas of my body with mild electric currents to stimulate my lymph nodes and make sure they were proper working order. And being the health buff that I am, I approve anything that involves stimulation.

The currents were set up to stimulate five areas of my anatomy where my lymph nodes had made kumpol kumpol:  my feet, my legs, my arms, my neck, and my favorite area when nobody is looking, my groin. “Just be careful around that area.” I stressed.  “If you remove any more barado (blockages) in that area than you reasonably should, my wife might have enough kids to field our own soccer team.”

While my tasteful areas were getting intimate with electricity, a female massage therapist slash amateur wrestler simultaneously performed a lymphatic acupressure massage targeting my stomach area. This massage involved repetitive stroking that my wife approved of: strokes that would improve digestion, strokes that would encourage regular bowel movements, strokes that would milk out my aesthetically displeasing fat deposits, and strokes that would help me contribute to the greenhouse gas effect.    

Since the slimming consultant wanted to help Meralco meet its profit targets for the year, the final stage of the lymphatic treatment would require enough electrical stimulation to light up Mindanao for the 2013 so that my muscles would contract and consequently improve muscle tone.       

My chest and stomach area were wrapped in pads through which electricity would be zapped into my system to simulate the actions of my muscles while exercising. This would be the equivalent of performing several hundred bench presses and sit-ups without the effort, without the pawis and without the ravaging eyes of a matrona spying on you to see if anyone is making peekaboo up your runner’s shorts while you are working out in the gym.   

The lymphatic treatment stimulated me in areas I never knew I had. Even in areas I didn’t want to have. And after being shot up with a gazillion or so volts over several treatments, I was certain that I had lost some weight. Because if I had not lost any weight just yet, the consultant said that they would have to set up the electrical stimulation in my less tasteful pink parts.

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For comments, suggestions or a souvenir from the colonic irrigation, please email Ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.net. Follow @rjled on Twitter.