Scribbling #26: The Endoscopy

I've been having a few problems with my stomach and digestive system over the past few months, which I pretty much attributed to stress, but after having a bad couple of weeks where my dodgy belly felt absolutely rotten inside, I decided to consult the doctor.

The system of consulting here is not as haphazard as it is in the UK, where basically you see your General Practitioner (GP), then he makes an appointment at the hospital so the doctor there can tell you exactly the same thing as your GP just did, then make another appointment for the procedure to actually be carried out.  Here in Slovakia, you get the 'shuffling' system, whereby you get shuffled from doctor to doctor like some sort of infernal pack of cards, to which end you shuffle your feet just outside the door of the required medical practitioner.  Waiting.  And waiting a bit more. And then some more waiting on top of that.  Until you wonder what it all could possibly mean...

Anyway.

So after making an appointment at the gastro-whatsit doctor, which was the third doctor I saw that day, I quickly found out that this would involve something called an endoscopy, whereby the medical staff would proceed to insert a Discovery Channel camera crew down my throat, where they can find hidden treasures such as the last burger I had in McDonalds before I substituted all burger concoctions for salads instead.  The target date was when I had night shift, so this would mean that I would work for eight hours without eating or drinking anything at all.  Fun stuff, as you can tell.

The doctor was nice enough and spoke English, and so Mrs. C was gently ushered away into the waiting room outside with some encouraging words from the nurse.  These lovely sentences produced the lines which were later translated as 'This is a really unpleasant procedure, so its best that you are not here.  Goodbye, we'll call you later.'

Mrs. C was not invited to this party.

After putting my bag and coat away onto the customary coat rack, they asked me to open my mouth so that they could administer some local anesthetic.  Happily, it did not taste much of anything, although my mouth did feel a little bit weird...

After this, I got told to be lie down on the bed on one side, asked me to open my mouth again, put in an almost-plastic-dummy(translation: soother/pacifier)  with a hole in the middle, and got told to breathe a lot.  The first thought that I had about the tube that the doctor waved around in front of me was: Wow, that's rather thick.  Thinking about it and having someone try to shove it down your throat are two different things, so this is pretty much what happened:

Doc:  And no we just gently put this in...

JC: groooaaarWWROOOAARRRrrrr!!

My leg at this point went up involuntarily and my whole body tensed.  All of it.  Every single skin cell was taut to absolute 'run away, run away' readiness.  My chest section heaved and tried to find something to throw up.  Didn't happen.

Doc: Ok, that didn't quite work.

And then he gave me a lecture.

Doc: Just remember to breathe, that I've done this job for over twenty years now and have had many, many, patients.  Everything is going to be fine.

JC:  Yeah, I *cough* know. *cough* Sorry.

Doc: Okay, here we go again...

JC: Ooomh-huuuh...

Doc:  Okay, good...

At this point, my entire body heaved all at once, causing me to stop breathing and trying to choke on the camera crew.

Doc:  Okay, one more time, remember to breathe.. and try to swallow every now and again.  The tube is always moving, so you always need some swallowing.

JC: *cough* *belch* Sorry. *cough* Okay, again.

Doc: Once more...

JC: Hoooowaaarrrghhhh...

Doc:  Ok, I'm in the stomach!

JC:  WeeeRRRaaarrrGGG...

Doc: Okay, there's no... no ulcer...

JC: WWWRRRRRaaaaaaaaaaa...

At this point, I'm hitting the table with my fist like a WWF wrestler that is refusing to give up because of some gag reflex.  At least, I hoped that I was giving that impression since I was drooling all over the side of the table by now.

Doc: And now I just need to quickly get...

JC:  NnnnnRRRRRRGGHHHHHHH.....

And the doctor inserted a small wire into the tube in order to get some, as Mrs. C later called it, 'stomach juice'.

JC:  WRRRRRRRGHHHHHHGaaaaaaahoooo.....

Doc: There, all done.

JC:  hoooo, boy...

Doc:  You're a good patient, usually by now you'd have tried to grab at the tube and pull it out yourself.

JC:  Really...?

Doc:  Well, we'll just finish up...

And so we did, with me having to stop giggling every now and again after re-living what had just happened, and also that we made another appointment to see what had happened to the inside of me.

And then Mrs. C bought me Subway.  Yay!