Yesterday, my daughter and I headed to the hospital's professional building at the ass-crack of dawn for me to have my ultrasound and upper GI. I'm glad my little monkey is nine and knows how to behave herself.
First was my ultrasound. The technician said I had "so much gas" and I was thinking to myself, "No, that's fat." He was checking for gallstones and a hiatal hernia. The worst part was holding my breath until I thought I was surely going to pass out. Then I was off to the waiting room again to wait for my upper GI.
If you've never had one, it's really not that unpleasant. First they gave me two gowns, one for the front and one for the back so I didn't have to worry about tying. They also gave me a pair of pajama pants. They were way too tight on the butt and I couldn't pull them all the way up, so I left them in the changing room... but not without noticing they were a size 3X...
They started by taking a couple of xrays of my abdomen while I was lying down. Then they excused me back to the waiting room for about 15 minutes before the next group of technicians called me in. There was a small wall with a little step on the bottom where they had me stand. The assistant had a small dose cup of water and a packet of crystals that were like AlkaSeltzer. I was instructed to swallow it in one big gulp as soon as she dumped the crystals in the water and do not burp. The taste wasn't that bad. It was citrus-y. Not burping was tough. When my stomach was sufficiently inflated from that cocktail, they brought me a larger styrofoam cup of barium. It was very thick and chalky. But again, the taste wasn't horrible. I'd been fasting since midnight, so it was better than nothing! They told me to drink it all, in big gulps on their cue, and keep going until it was gone. They were filming this stuff going down my throat and into my stomach. I would have loved to see it!
Then they had me face the wall and the assistant placed a doubled pillow between my face and the wall. WTH??? Then the "wall" began tilting forward and kept going until I was lying on my stomach! The assistant brought me another big styrofoam cup of chalky nastiness with a big, fat straw in it. Again, I had to chug it, while lying on my stomach this time. Then the fun came. I had to roll to my right and onto my back. Then halfway to the left. Then halfway to the right. Back and forth, back and forth, while the barium coated my stomach. Then it was back and forth a few more times while they took more images. The table stood me back up and they gave me a tablet to swallow with water. I'm thinking maybe it was Gas-X or something since I didn't have any residual discomfort.
And that was it. 90 minutes total in the medical building. The tests were completely painless and while they weren't particularly pleasant, they were nothing to be afraid of.
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