The "Procedure"

Here goes:

The day before the scopes--uh, upper and lower--I can have nothing but clear liquids (nothing red). Plus I have to drink 4 liters of this stuff affectionately known by nurses as Go-Deadly.

Ingredients:
1. Ocean water
2. Motor oil
3. Napalm

First I have to take an anti-nausea pill which is nothing but a waste of a $10 co-pay. Then I'm supposed to drink the Go-Deadly in 4 hours. It takes me 8. Each glass I have to chase down with a swig of fruit punch. Yes, RED fruit punch. If they can't tell the difference between fruit punch and blood, then I want a different doctor.

Green Jello works, too.

I want to die. Because it tastes exactly like the ingredients listed above. I've since found out that it comes in flavors. Yes, flavors! Be sure to file this away for future reference.

The Go-Deadly kicks in. Use your imagination.

Then I wake up in the morning with a full blown migraine. This rarely happens any more because I take Fiorinal #3 which knocks it out before it gets to this point. But:

1. I'm not supposed to take anything by mouth after midnight.
2. Even if I did slip myself a F#3 it has aspirin in it. They specified No Aspirin Products. No hemorraghing allowed.
3. It also has butalbital, a sedative. They're knocking me out this morning and I'd like to spend the rest of my life not in a persistive vegetative state.

So I don't take it. It's five a.m. I have to be there at 8:30. Any other day I'd be in the emergency room begging for narcotics. Worse this is that I can't even throw up! Nothing left in there, of course.

I swear it's the longest 3.5 hours of my life.

Nate drives me to the Clinic. I retch the whole way. I retch during registration. I retch while changing into that backless Vera Wang original gown.

See Jen retch. Retch, Jen, retch.

The nurses are sweet. They turn off the lights, try to make me comfortable--but they can't give me anything for migraine till they talk to the doc who's busy ramming tubes through another patient's orifices.

Nurse: "If you keep this up he might not be able to do the test. He can't do the EGD if you're vomiting."

Me: "Well, if he doesn't do it today it's never getting done because I am NEVER going through this again!"

Retch, Jen, retch.

Oops. My dry heaves are no longer "dry." Can that possibly be green Jello? I hope so, because if it's not I have a bigger problem than I thought.

Nurse starts an IV. They wheel me back. Nurse asks what my anxiety level is on a scale of 1-10. They already know what my pain level is.

Me: "Eight. But I'll be knocked out, right?"

Nurse: "No, you won't be knocked out. It's called conscious sedation."

Me: "I don't want to be conscious anything. And now it's a ten, thank you very much."

I guess the retching doesn't concern the doc as much as the nurse thought. Immediately they shoot me with 100 mg of Demerol. *squirt, squirt in the IV tubing* The doc peers into my face and asks, "How's the headache now?"

La, la, la-la-laaaahhhhhh....! Headache? What headache?

They stick a bite block in my mouth.

I don't care.

The doctor, who I now absolutely love--I'd offer to bear his next child but the bite block prevents me from speaking--says, "And now we'll give you some Versed..." *more squirt, squirt into the IV tubing*

I don't care.

I'm in heaven.

And then...I wake up. It's totally over and I didn't feel a thing.

Result: My stomach is seriously messed up (like I needed a tube shoved down me to tell me that?) but nothing that can't be fixed with medication and a few "diet adjustments," the worse one being:

KNOCK OFF THE COFFEE!