Last night was, to say the least, an adventure. First, I had to drink that solution which tasted like some type of salt-water solution. Now, I've inadvertently ingested a lot of salt water (every summer my family spent a month on the Jersey shore and my brother and I were always in the water) and I don't remember it having this type of effect on me.... Actually...it's still having an effect (if you catch my drift). At what point does it stop? Yeesh. I was fine until about midnight and then I kept having to get up and go to the bathroom. I know that I really started to annoy Posey (my kitten) because she just couldn't get comfortable on the bed with all of my movement. Sorry Posey....I know you're in charge of the bed and a master at sleeping and I'm just your humble subject.
This morning it was hard because I was hungry. It was hard enough not eating anything after Mack's class last night (when I was famished) but to wake up and not eat anything was pretty difficult. I felt very sorry for myself so, instead of watching the news as usual, I watched Saved By the Bell. That Zack Morris....such a nut. It was a form of protest -- of course I was only hurting myself with this protest but that is an entirely other conversation. (Sort of like hitting your head against the wall because you're mad at your mother....)
I made it to the "check in" office of the imaging company and had to wait with a bunch of other people for my name to be called. Finally I was called and they, as usual, mispronounced my name "Tan Jah" (hard "j"). The lady seemed surprised when I told her that my name was pronounced "Tanya" because she told me that she thought she got it right. I just shook my head. (What do you say to that?) What kind of name is Tan Jah anyway? Doesn't it seem more logical that my name would be pronounced the same as someone named Sonja? No.....that doesn't occur to them. One time I was in a Macy's and the lady mispronounced my name and, after being asked, I told her the correct pronunciation. She then asked me which one I preferred.....Hmmmmm......are you asking whether I prefer the wrong pronounciation or the right one? Are you REALLY asking me that? I just looked at her....words escaped me (which you know is very rare ).
After conquering that hurdle, I was sent to the 4th floor where they actually do the test. I was escorted back and told to take my top and bra off (yes Gerry, I wore a top this time) and my jeans and put on a gown. I also had to put all of my stuff in a plastic basket and carry it around with me. Why does this sound like jail? Did they want me to take my shoelaces out too? How do I know that much about jail? The radiologist was an Indian lady....now my experience with older Indian ladies is that they are very much like older German ladies. They know what they want and they are very blunt about telling you things. (I should know, I was raised by a little 5 foot 1 inch dynamo from the Vaterland.) This radiologist was no exception. She took a few pictures of me and told me to hold my breath and sometimes told me to breathe again. I say "sometimes" because she was very talkative and often she would tell me to hold m y breath, go behind the wall shielding her from the x-rays and come back out talking away without telling me to breathe again. I learned to take her movement from behind the wall as a signal that I could breathe again. Phew. After the first few pictures, she went out for a while and came back in and said that she couldn't find my kidneys. What? She said they're in different places on different people so they're sometimes hard to find. Yes...but they're generally in the same area ... right?....I mean....a person never has a kidney behind their left knee...right? She took some more pictures and left again. When she came back she started to put some liquid in two large syringes. I asked her whether she found my kidneys and she said "oh yes." Phew. "There are two of them, right?" "Oh yes." Glad to know they're still in there. (I mean, you've all heard about people getting drugged and waking u p in a hotel bathtub full of ice with a note that their kidney has been removed? Maybe that happened and I totally didn't remember it and, by some miracle, didn't have a scar. Maybe I DO have a scar because I don't regularly check out my lower back in the mirror.....Ahhhhhh.)
Next this fellow came in and started talking to me. He was very chatty but he kept on looking at what I thought was my right breast but what later turned out to be my right arm. Now...I was laying down and wondering why this guy kept looking at my right breast. It couldn't be that attractive in this position (with my weight loss and gravity and all). Finally, he asked me whether I had a "good vein." Ohhhhhhh...he's looking at my arm. I told him that I used to give blood with my left arm and that I've always been told I have a good vein there. He asked me why did I "used" to give blood and I told him that I lived in Germany in the 80s, etc. He said that was ridiculous because they can just do a test to check whether you have Mad Cow disease. EXACTLY! I'm glad a medical professional and former imaginary right breast-looker has confirmed that for me.
Well, the Indian lady told me how she lived in Frankfurt for a while on her adventure to become a U.S. Citizen and I told her that I was applying to become a Foreign Service Officer. She then asked me why it is so hard for her to get a visa for her brothers in India to visit here. I'm NOT CURRENTLY a foreign service officer. I told her that I had no idea why. Then, the imaginary breast-looker told me he was from Guyana. I asked him whether everybody asks him about Jim Jones and he said yes. He said that sometimes he has to bring it up himself because people haven't heard about his country. I asked him if he liked grape kool-aid. He didn't say anything. (Fortunately, he'd already stuck me and had started to put the iodine dye in my vein.) By the way, that stuff was cold. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to put it through the 7-11 Slushy machine before injecting it into me...but someone DID. My arm was freezing cold after that. Then the visa-question asker took a whole bunch of pictures and I was allowed to leave. I went to the medical records area and they printed a CD with my "films" on it.
I drove them over to my urologist's office and he had me give him another urine sample. Luckily that dye was tired of hanging around inside of me.... After waiting 30 minutes, he came back and told me that I have a few calcified veins in my kidneys. What? But that it was just normal for someone my age. Yes...my body is slowly breaking down. My stone came back and it was determined to be made up of Calcium Oxalate. He told me that because this was my first stone they weren't going to put me on any kind of restricted diet or drugs but that I should just watch out and not eat a lot of vitamin supplements (I don't eat any per Mack), spinach (one of Mack's favorite foods and Popeye's of course) and rhubarb (NO....not rhubarb...I can't remember when I had that last...or ever). I was also supposed to cut down on Vitamin C, drink a lot of water and don't drink any dark sodas. Also, here's the good news. I have a 50/50 chance of having another stone in the next 5 years. Yahoo! Something to look forward to.
Thanks for reading this far. It's definitely a tribute to your determination.
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