I'm still alive, I swear! A lot has happened in my little corner of Sick Girl Land as you'll soon see. Over the next week or so, I'll be catching you up. For now, jump into your time machines with me and travel back to March 26th and 27th. We find our intrepid heroine about to take on the evil radioactive eggs once more....
I got to Big Academic Medical Center very early on the morning of my second gastric emptying scan. I checked in and waited for a bit. Then a nurse called me back. She asked if I'd had anything to eat or drink yet that day (I hadn't, as instructed) and if I was allergic to eggs (I'm not, thank God.The alternative food for the scan is usually oatmeal,blech.) This time, I needed blood drawn beforehand, so we got that taken care of. The assumption of most of the medical world when it comes to gastroparesis is gastroparesisis equals diabetes.Not so for me, but I submitted to the blood draw peacefully. After that, the nurse showed me the way to the nuclear medicine suite where the scan would be conducted.
A radiology resident came out of his hidey hole and we chatted about my history and diagnosis. He crept back where he came from just in time for the door behind me to open and for a tech to stick hios head out to ask what kind of jelly I wanted on my sandwich. Uh, JELLY? Whose bright idea was it to put jelly with scrambled eggs. Nasty crap. When the guy wouldn't take "None!" for an answer, I acquiesced and asked for grape. Soon, the tech brought me his magnificent creation. It was then that I saw the signs on the door through which he'd just come. "Staff must wear protective gear at ALL times" read one sign. Several florescent green and red bio hazard symbols were plastered to the door as well. I was supposed to eat something that came from there? Bring it on!
I refused to even acknowledge what I was eating and downed two thirds of the lovely sandwich. I then was transferred to the scanner table and put in my ear buds and closed my eyes. Joshua Radin's soothing voice took me away and the first 90 minutes of the scan sped by.
I was transferred back to my chair for 20 minutes while we waited for the two hour mark. At two hours. I was scanned again and then put back in my chair, this time to wait it out until the four-hour mark. I was still not allowed to eat or drink. I took my Kindle and my phone and hung out in the waiting room for about an hour and a half. Fun times! At four hours, I was scanned again and then left to meet a friend.
Fast forward three weeks. My motility specialist called to tell me the results. She said at two hours my emptying time was nearly normal. I started to think she was going to refute the gastroparesiss diagnosis and that I'd be back to square one in terms of trying to figure out what was going on. Her next sentence put to rest any of that nonsense. "However, at four hours the scan was highly abnormal." OK, good! My answer wasn't changing. I could live with that.
Stay tuned for tales of roving MRIs, excellent doctors and a hospital stay.
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