Dear Reader,
I had a hilarious medical moment this week!
For context, somewhere in the last couple of years I have developed a small problem with acid reflux. Standard medication doesn't work on me so it's been a bit of an ongoing battle. Since I'm back home I decided to look into what's causing it. And so my gastroenterologist sent me to have what is called a CT Fizzogram.
Haven't heard of it? Neither had I!
Basically a CT Fizzogram is being shoved into an MRI machine with a stomach full of carbon dioxide and stern instructions to let the tech know immediately if you're going to puke.
It was a surreal experience. Most medical tests seem to take forever. This one they got me positioned on the bench to go into the MRI machine and handed me two little shot glasses--one filled with white sludge and the other with clear blue liquid. I was told to throw them down the hatch, "In one
go, if you can. Try not to burb and for the love of all this expensive equipment let us know if you're going to throw up."
Then it was go. Go. GO!
Seriously, the actual scan was done in less than five
minutes.
The longest part of the whole process was being made to wait in the little medical cubical, clutching a plastic
barf bag, and feeling rather nauseous while all that medically induced gas burped its was out of my system.
But it
turns out that trick of making myself burp I figured out as a kid does have an adult use after all. By the time I got to letter Q the gas had mostly cleared my system and I got a round of applause from an older gentleman who was waiting to getting his kidneys checked.
