Miasmatic Review

Yea, I'm still around.

Okay, so technically I could have posted an update yesterday, but I damn well didn’t feel like it. Yesterday was about as productive as a blind man sorting crayons by color. Everything started off all right. I get to the doctor’s office, did the check in thing, answered their questions and went to wait. I figured I’d have to wait a good hour before getting in, that’s how it usually works, doesn’t it? Not here, I was in talking to the nurse 20 minutes ahead of my scheduled time. That, however, is where my day starts to break down.

The nurse is asking me more questions. Well, actually she is getting clarification of my answer on the background form. This actually led to some mirth for me. The nurse says, “On the form it says you drink alcohol 2-3 times a week, how much do you drink?” Being as honest as possible I answer with, “I’ve been known to drink a case or two.” Nurse, “Over the weekend?” Me, “To be honest I’ve been known to do that in one night. Of late I’ve been drinking about a bottle of Jack Daniels over a two day span.” The nurse looked at me like I had issues.

Then she asks me if I have any medication allergies. I’m not aware of any, so I told her I didn’t. She then asked me if I was allergic to Novocain. I started off telling her no, but then I remembered an incident that happened 3 years ago at the dentist. He was doing some work on my teeth and gave me some Novocain. My bottom lip swelled up to three times its normal size. After four hours it returned to normal. It was a one time thing and I don’t know if it is an allergy or not, so I told her that. This is when I received the shock of the day. She says to me, “Do you want me to mark that as an allergy? Because we can use something else when we do the procedure or we can attempt it again if you prefer.” Me, “Why would I need Novocain?” Nurse,” They numb your sphincter before inserting the camera in your rectum.” Me, “WHAT?!?!?!?!?! I’m here for stomach problems. I know of a much shorter route to get a camera into my stomach that up my butt!” As I’m saying it I’m making a hand gesture of a camera going through my colon. (Think of someone tracing the entire large and small colon with their hand.) If I did have a Novocain allergy, I would hate to have my sphincter swell up to three times it’s normal size. I’m not thinking that would be pleasant.

The nurse looks at the file she has, “Mr., Contagion, what’s your date of birth.” I give it to her and at that point the nurse has a small chuckle and says she grabbed the file for another patient of theirs that has the same name as me but is having problems in the opposite end of the digestive tract then I do. Unfortunately this is not the first time this has happened to me in Rockford, so I get how the mistake happens. I’m just glad it’s not me that’s going to have a camera going where no man has gone, nor wants to, before. I do feel sorry for that other poor bastard.

We get that all straightened out, she gets the new file comes in and takes my blood pressure. She tells me it’s up from when I saw my doctor last a couple of weeks ago. I tell her of course it is, I’m in a gastroenterologists office and you just told me you wanted to stick a camera up my butt. That’s not a soothing situation.

The doctor comes in and asks more questions, does a physical, but not a COMPLETE physical. I even made sure to remind him, stomach problems, not colon problems. Then they end up just having me do the barium test. They didn’t even do the complete procedure; they just did a bunch of pre-procedure procedures to make sure they know what they are looking for. Now I have to go back in two weeks to finish.
Thus I was off my meds for 3 days, my stomach was a wreck, I feel like I swallowed a chunk of granite and I still have to go through all really rough stuff in 2 weeks. Two more weeks of wondering and speculation at what is wrong. How annoying.

At least they aren’t going to stick a camera up my arse!