I am finishing up my latest round of scans. In the past three weeks, it seems I have been tested every other day. I haven't actually been tested every other day, but medical providers have still found a way to bill me every other day. So far I have finished a chest X-ray, a CATscan, CBC, tumor marker blood test, and in a matter of hours a upper endoscopy (with jumbo biopsies, YIPPEE!), oh yeah and peeing into the random cup every once in a while too. I just hope I was supposed to pee in that one cup, because the nurse gave me a funny look, and I don't remember specimen cups saying "Moe's Southwest Grill" on the side...
The X-rays were as expected. I raise my hands above my head while the nurse shoves me against the wall like she's on COPS and I am an unruly suspect (one time I accidentally yelled out "Don't tase me bro" during the test). The blood and urine tests were pretty routine as well. I get asked for a body fluid, and I deposit it into whatever receptacle they hold in front of me. The only problem was a slight miscalculation on driving time/fluid intake, which required me to make the receptionist wait for my insurance co-pay until after I gave them a sample.
The one thing I wasn't expecting was a CATscan. When I decided to do chemo over testing (mainly dozens of CATscans) I knew I would still have to get the occasional CATscan, I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon after my last oncologist appointment. As soon as he ordered it, I had flashbacks of the taste of the contrast dye and the associated CATstipation. Not wanting to roll around on the floor in impacted and backed up pain again, I had taken two liter bottles of water with me to do some mega-hydrating on the drive back from the hospital. Luckily, I didn't start drinking them yet, because when I arrived I was told I would not be drinking the slightly flavored chalky substance. They had a new water based contrast, but I had to drink a liter of it in an hour. Still skeptical, I apprehensively took a taste. It tasted like Terre Haute water, which for those of you that haven't been to/smelled Terre Haute, IN, it kinda taste like...well...have you ever put a cooler away and forgotten to drain it? Well, it kinda tastes like that smells. Not good, but not bad either, and definitely better than the nasty, chalky, constipatitiony, bottomless cup of sludge that I had to drink before.
Within a few days, I got all of my results back, X-ray's and scans were clean. Urine and blood tests were normal, and tumor marker's still dropping. So now I am preparing for my endoscopy tomorrow. My preparation involves mainly not eating after midnight and not sleeping. I have literally had more scopes than I can count, all I know is that I am in double digits, and I have developed a routine. I stay up late the night before, I go into the hospital barely awake, I get some Demerol shoved in my vein, and I wake up with my wife giving me dirty looks because I apparently won't wake up and I ask the same questions over and over again.
See, in my long history of scopes, there are two things I don't like about them. One time I woke up when they snapped the plastic guide between my teeth, and the feeling/sound was not a pleasant experience. Now they say you don't remember anything from the scope, but obviously if I just told you about that, I did remember it, because they don't put that thing in your mouth before you go in there and it is out before you wake up, so the only way I would know about it is to wake up during the procedure, and remember it (and I also remember hearing the doctor say, "He's waking up, give him so more."). The other thing, is for some reason the oxygen tube that they stick in your nose, makes me feel like I am drowning. OK, OK, I will wait for you to quit laughing at me. Are you done? So, I don't know why I have that feeling, but I do. If I am totally out, it's no big deal. If I am kinda out, I wake up, thrashing saying I can't breathe (which just by saying "I can't breathe" it proves I can breathe, but anyway), and before I know it I am sedated again and I wake up with straps on my arms. For the comfort and safety of myself and the nurses attending to me, I have found that we are all much happier, if I am completely out of it during the scope.
As far as tests go, an endoscopy really isn't that bad. The bad thing is, they keep you from eating for so long before, and for my condition they take out large biopsies in my throat to send to a pathologist, which leaves me waking up starving, but yet it hurts to swallow. It's like some cruel joke the doctor's and nurses play on me, maybe in some sort of retaliation for thrashing around during the procedure acting like I'm drowning. At any rate, I am ready to get this test over with and anxious to hear my results. With this test behind me I am through with doctors (for me) until November. Hopefully, the nurses will loosen my straps tomorrow and I can come home and tell you how everything went.
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