More tests

I'm not a good updater!

Last Tuesday I had so many tests: I had labs drawn, 13 tubes, an EKG, chest x-ray and an upper GI.  That was fun!  Actually it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be.

I went to the hospital radiology department in the morning because I needed to be fasting.  They took me into the fluoroscopy room and stood me up against a huge board.  It looked like a ginormous digital x-ray cassette we use to take straight images.  The fluoroscopy machine was in front of me. They gave me a quick rundown of what was going to happen and told me not to worry about remembering, they would walk me thru it.

They asked me if I was ready then they handed me a Styrofoam cup of water. The tech told me that once he put the alkaseltzer like crystals into the water I needed to gulp it down and not belch it out.  He dumped the crystals in and I shot it and it exploded out of my mouth!  I gulped as much as I could and immediately needed to burp.  The lady tech handed me another cup full of barium and told me to once again gulp as quickly as I could. The first gulp went down ok, but the next one got stuck on my gag reflex!  I didn't want to throw up so I swallowed has hard as I could and kept going. I just imagined I was drinking runny chalk flavored yogurt because that was the consistency.  He then laid the table back while I was still on it and had me roll around on the table, taking different pictures of the barium going thru me. Then I had to lay on my left side while I drank a thinner version of barium thru a straw.  All the while I could look up and see what they were looking at.  It was so cool!  When I was done the tech explained to me what I was looking at and I thought it was so nice for him to take the time to explain.  I'm pretty lucky to be in the medical field, especially taking x-rays, so I can understand what he was saying. If I was just a scared patient not knowing what was really involved with the procedure, I would have been very comfortable with him because he was so kind and patient.  They both were!

The EKG was awkward; the tech had me sit in a chair, pull up my bra and shirt, hook me up and do her test.  I felt so embarrassed but whatever, she was nice and it's over. I'm sure there will be more embarrassing tests to do.

I then met with the physical therapist and went thru my exercise goal and was given a pedometer and need to count my steps.  She wants me to start out with a goal of 5000 steps and work up to 10,000. 

Tomorrow is more test: a computer psych test and then I meet with my PCP for my annual exam.  Ug, talk about awkward!