The Imaging Center, the Breath Test and a follow up

The second round of tests I had.  First up, was my day at the imaging center.

Oh god, was this a fun day. I spent three hours at the imaging center, having tests done a few week ago. The upside was that everything came back A-OK.

First up were sonograms, of my abdomin and my legs. Ick. I was covered with lube! (Which, somehow, is different than when it happens because of sex.)

Here’s the exam room:

The chick who did it was pretty funny. She was chatty and out there like me, and she had this great sign up in her examination room:

I can relate. Who can’t?

We yammered away during the whole procedure, so even though it took an hour, it was fun. And from what she saw, I had a functioning pancreas, gall bladder, kidneys, and veins. Go me!

I had to run off after that and get a set of chest x-rays for the pulmonologist. That was the easiest, quickest part of the day.

Then, there was the icky worst test ever.

The barium. Not a barium enema, which actually would have been preferable. This was a test where I had to drink this stuff:

Yeah, see that little bottle? I had to drink nearly all of that. I was told “Oh, its ok if you throw up. We have more!”.

Thanks. Very comforting.

And I did almost throw up. This shit was nasty. It tasted like cherry and strawberries, if fruit had asses and then shit out a chalky liquid.

I had to get up on this table here, and lay in weird positions while drinking this stuff so they could get x-rays of it going through my system

It was extremely unpleasant.  Then I got to stop drinking, while she got the doctor, so they could put my esophagus up on a television screen so he could watch while I continually drank that stuff. Yuck yuck yuck!

After it was all over, I was so glad I had the good sense to bring a banana and a chocolate Optifast shake.

I spent lots of time waiting around half naked that day.

Aren’t these doctors robes sexy? Oh yeah.

The next day, I had a much easier test. A Breath Test.  Basically, I breathed in this apparatus several different ways, under the instruction of the technician.

The last test, which the machine is set up for here, not only tested how I breathed, and the strength of it, but those plastic bags collected my breath for later testing.

I was in and out in fifteen minutes. After all the crap I went through the day before, I was very happy.

Later that week, I went back to the pulmonologist so he could go over my x-rays (they were clear) my breath test (it was good) and check on my wheeze, which he had given me several inhalers to use as a treatment.

The wheeze is gone! He cleared me for surgery too, along with the imaging people and the cardiologist!

Now, all I have to do is the last round of my psychiatric evaluation, which should be fun. That will be later today. I’m also going to see the surgeon today, to go over all these test results, and to get my surgery date! Yay! Soon, I will know WHEN this will happen. I’m so excited!