In Which She Overshares About Medical Testing

For a while now, I've suffered with some strange stomach ailment that seems to line up with the symptoms of a hiatal hernia, GERD or a stomach ulcer, but could also be somehow related to my c-section of four years ago.

Any which way...no fun.

All of this has been the bane of my existence in recent weeks.

Apparently the diet Jeff and I adhered to so rigorously for the latter part of last school year and most of the summer can set in motion an internal 'cleansing' where the body begins to slough off bad stuff which can result in problems with kidney stones or even gallbladder attacks. Concerns about such things were what first convinced me to go to the doctor. Well, that and worrying that I might still have a sponge or scalpel or other surgical instrument still in my body after all this time. Stranger things have happened.

My journey began by reading up on some alternative therapies and things that could be done in some books from my local health food store. Cleansing fasts and the like.

However, I wanted a definite diagnosis before I began just to be sure I was addressing the right issues from the inside out and not putting a band-aid on the symptoms. Or overlooking something major.

SOOoooo, I went to the doctor. Who sent me in for several lab tests...all of which I needed to have done before my appointment on October 15th.

I've been in for all the blood drawing, the urinalysis and such and yesterday had to wrap things up with an x-ray and 'the biggie'...the Upper GI imaging test.

My lovely day began yesterday morning as I got Judah ready and then dropped him off at Grandmas (I didn't need him pushing all the buttons or otherwise wreaking havoc in the lab).

Naturally there was a detour on the way to the lab that morning, which resulted in my needing to make a third call to the lab in 10 minutes time. The first was to make sure I was headed for the right office (they have several), and the second was to be sure I had to fast because if I didn't have to, I was going to stop off at Starbucks.

It was after hours on Satrday when I'd thought to call and ask and because I couldn't get through to anyone had fasted as a precaution. It was a good thing I had.

Anyway, after three calls in so short a time span, I was beginning to feel like a nag, sure that the nice office lady Myra recognized my voice by now.

Finally, I arrived and Myra gave me sheaf of paperwork to fill out.

Is it just me or does every mom freak out just a little when going in for an x-ray procedure? Something about seeing the "Please inform the staff if you suspect you might be pregnant" warning signs always make me second-guess myself and the evidence to the contrary.

When I finished filling everything out, I was escorted to a bank of changing cubicles with accordian-fold doors as the only view.



I was being generous in saying cubicle, as it was roughly the size of an old telephone booth. Barely enough room to turn around in, let alone to try and put on the glorified paper towel clothing they now give you.

Whatever happened to cloth gowns? Seems such a thing would be a tad 'greener' and a means of recycling where they can, since for sanitary and biohazard reasons they can only use certain other numerous items at those places only once before properly disposing of them. And whilst I'm complaining, why on earth don't they make the split down the backside of hospital gowns off center a few inches? So that it's not gaping open at the worst possible place?

So I'm changing into my paper-towel garment and the tech says through the door, "Go ahead and just relax in there for a few minutes until I call you in for your first x-ray."



Funny, that. Somehow, sitting in skimpy paper clothing in a claustrophobically tight little booth with a folding tan door separating my scantily clad self from the general public wasn't exactly my idea of relaxation.

She finally calls me back into that cold sterile room with the greenish cast of flourescent lighting, and has me take a seat on a formica platform beneath the big x-ray contraption.

Germophobe that I am, I couldn't help but think about how other people's exposed backsides might have touched that very same surface. Ewww! Lucky me, they'd thought to also issue me some disposable paper towel shorts, too. I could only trust they'd offered the same courtesy to the others that had been there before me.

After that x-ray, she has me get off the table and proceeds to tilt the whole table and machine vertically and instructs me to step onto it for standing 'before' photo.

She hands me this sterile little packet she'd opened before giving it to me. It resembled the packets that moist towelettes come in at a local ribs restaurant.

Into my other hand, she places a very heavy beverage in a plastic cup roughly the size of a soda can. The dense, heavy white liquid inside resembled white primer paint or whitewash.

In fact, I'm still not convinced that it wasn't.

Suddenly, the doc comes in. "You are first going to put ze crystals on your tongue...and zen you weel follow weeth ze barium."

"You will feel like you need to belch. Do not! We need ze gahs in zhere to get a good image."

So I put 'ze crystals' on my tongue, and suddenly he's yelling, "Drink ze barium! Drink ze barium. Wash down ze crystals!"

Under that kind of pressure, I did it just as fast as one can chug such thick, goopy stuff...and, as promised, it was instant, miserable gas to the enth degree.

That barium was the grossest thing to ever cross my lips. I would even venture to say that even sour milk tastes better.

He was right. 'Ze gahs' caused a horrible pain high up in my stomach, and I wanted to belch in the worst way.

Then, the x-ray table I was standing in began to move me back to a diagonal position...belchy-pukey feeling and all.

Another x-ray.

Then it moved me until I was flat on my back. I thought I was going to lose it, that thick chalky barium spewing all over the machine above me.

By the looks of things it had happened before, though it must've been from another angle for whomever was responsible, as the barium apparently leaked through a screw hole on the machine and dribbled onto the backside of the glass where they couldn't clean it off. Ewww...gross.

Byt his time, I was barely holding it all in.

Then, all at once, the tech was there moving the machinery and helping me to sit up, and the doctor was gone.

"Okay, you're free to belch now" she said.

And as unladylike as it was, I couldn't not, for to do so was the fastest route to relief...something I desperately needed at that moment.

I let loose with a humdinger, and then threw in a few more for good measure, but felt only slightly relieved.

It's amazing how much gas those little pop-rocks can put in a stomach. I think I now believe the stories of the kid who swallowed them with soda back in the 1970's and died. Because I was feelin' the pain and misery.

The tech handed me another large cup of that whitewash stuff and told me to go 'relax' in my cubicle and guzzle the rest down as quickly as I could. After I was done, she'd be back for me in 15 minutes for another image.

I sat in my little booth and gulped it down obediently, employing the plug-my-nose-so-I-can't-taste-it technique from childhood. I peeked out the folding door to notify her I was done.

It as then I noticed that the cubicles flanked the hallway between the waiting room and the x-ray and other lab rooms, and that all foot traffic passed by that cubicle. So there I was in my not-so-private booth trying very hard to belch quietly and in a ladylike manner.

Which really made it sound more like a frog croaking.

There is no such thing as a silent belch. It's all or nothing, with perhaps only a slight differentiation in volume.

I sat there for 25 minutes, croaking, until they finally remembered me and came to get me for my next x-ray.

This time, I had to lay on my stomach, with paper towel clothing gaping open in all the places as to make me feel very uncomfortable in light of the fact that this time around the tech was male.

I tried to comfort myelf with the fact that he'd probably seen much, much worse in his line of work, in the same room where barium enemas and colonoscopies were also apparently performed.

It wasn't working. I cringed and cringed some more, my humiliation utterly complete. If I'd had a paper bag handy, I would have covered my head with it.

Finally, I was told to go 'relax' again for another 15 minues.

I sat in my little home-away-from-home once again, croaking as quietly as a post pop-rocks/barium drinker can.

That was when I heard a teen girl come in for the same procedure.

I heard her stirring in her changing room beside mine after she'd returned from her own torture-by-pop rocks procedure.

She was supposed to be relaxing, but instead moaned to her mother outside the folding doors, "Mo-oo-oo-oom...I feel like I'm going to puke."

I wanted to call out, "Just burp, honey...you'll feel SO much better", but at the last second realized just how odd that would sound coming from the cubicle next door. I mean, it's places like that and public restrooms where you just don't strike up friendly conversation with others, you know? It's just too wierd.

So I kept my advice to myself.

Momentarily I heard a long, deep belch.

Her mom called tentatively through the door, "Honey? You okay?"

"Yeah, mom...burping makes me feel better."

Finally, I was summoned to the x-ray room for what I hoped would be my last image.

I gathered the back of my paper towel shut, and backed along the wall and into the room with as much dignity as such situations allow.

The tech informed me that this might be my last image. "It varies from person to person, depending on how long their transit time is", but that I was "ahead of schedule so far."

He said all this like good transit time was something to be proud of.

All I wanted was to be 'in transit' home, where I could relax in the comfort of my own bed, in my comfy pjs and soft socks.

This time, my image had to be taken with a prism shaped pillow shoved under my right ribcage, while lying flat on my stomach. How comfy.

After checking that x-ray, he told me I was free to go.

And I went, croaking all the way.

I must say, I'm sufficiently recovered today, though a tad traumatized. Somehow the idea of a long cleansing fast followed by a long juicing fast sounds much, much better than having to endure that kind of indignity ever again!