Jeremiah's School of Levitation

Okay, now I'm REALLY back. And, proud to say that this post will officially break my "shorter posts" resolution (I've got to make up for missed days!).

See, I spent last week in some pain and in the doctor's office, wondering out loud what the gastric hell is wrong with my guts. Many diagnoses were put forth (he said in the passive voice) but were finally narrowed down to three: gallstones, ulcer, or something colon-ial.

We checked for gallstones last week. To do this, I had to go have an ultrasound, which I realized I hadn't seen for about ten years when my wife and I were looking at the embryonic darlingness that was to become my youngest son, who has grown up to be a healthy, happy, hurricane-force wind.

So, in the ultrasound chamber, I was eager to see my guts, which I'd never seen due to the fact I've consistently avoided alleyway knife fights (so far). I lay down and the young lady doing the procedure greased me up and directed me to look at the monitor hanging over my head. I asked her if this monitor was actually broadcasting the video of my guts on some cable channel and, if so, I was going to call some friends and tell them "Hey! My pancreas is on channel 143 now! Check it out!" However, that wasn't the case. "We're off the air," said the technician.

So, she got to sliding the ultrasound thing around on my belly and I tried to make out what I was seeing on the screen. In my highly medically trained opinion, judging by what I saw on the screen, my guts are generally just an indefinable bowl of snot, which I always suspected. "There's my problem," I told the tech. "My guts are really just snot. That causes bad stomachaches, I'm sure." She ignored me.

She did get one on me, though. As she scanned, she stopped and said "Look! You're going to have twins!" Ha, ha...

Finally, we crossed my liver region and, remarkably, I knew it instantly because my liver looks exactly like liver. It's got that same consistency and shade of the liver in the grocery store. And, I bet it tastes better (jeez, why did I write that?). I asked the tech if that was my liver and she confirmed that it was. I got a little choked up. From there, we journeyed to my gall bladder, which was the whole reason I was in here. Again, it was pretty nondescript. I tried to see if there were any stones in it, as if I could tell. I suppose the only way I'd be sure if there were really any stones in there would be if I should happen to see a silhouette of Mick Jagger or, even more ominously (but encouraging), Keith Richards. I contemplated telling the tech that joke, but she'd had enough of me and, in annoyance, she'd probably ultrasound my head and I'd end up like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Also, another thing--she kept having me hold my breath while she ultrasounded. I finally asked her why I had to hold my breath, and she said: "Well, I thought that would make your organs slide a little further down, but it's not working because you have such a solid stomach."

"Oh," I said on the outside. Inside, I pumped my fist and said "YES!!" Confirmation that the situps are working! I felt myself blushing...

In the end, all went well. My doc later told me that nothing was unusual in the ultrasound. My gall bladder didn't have stones, or beatles, or pixies in them. So, we can rule out needing to remove it medically.

This means we still have the stomach and colon to consider as sources of my pain. Which means I'll need invasive exams into each of those two organs this week. Which means I'll definitely have to tell you what it was like. Which means you might want to skip my colon post....

I await your jokes made to the colon-ial investigator with much anticipation.

oh so sorry for your discomfort!!

nice post though. was the goo cold or did she warm it up before smearing it all over you?

I'll definitely be back for the colon-ial report. And this is just a guess, but holding your breath may have been just her way of saying "stop talking already." ;-)

Good luck with the diagnosis. Gastric pain is well, a pain!

If you have to have a colonoscopy, it's really not that bad. The most I got out of the whole thing was what I apparently said when I came out of anesthesia, which my family likes to remind me of. The worst part of the whole thing was the stuff they make you drink before hand. That stuff was nasty. And they never found out what was wrong with me.

I hope that it goes well for you! Like your blog, btw; I got here from fueled by coffee (emma).

Compared with other procedures, ultrasounds are such a wonderfully simple way to see the dancing heebie jeebies inside.

Alas, your heebies must be lodged elsewhere.

No fair! I want an uncomfortable colon-scope-thingy! Maybe they have a two-fer, and I can finally check that off my 'to-do' list....

(My last ultrasound was an internal girly-one, which wasn't so much a doctor appointment as a weird form of porn....)

OH, that was so funny even in bad news, you crack me up. PHEW!! I needed a good laugh.
okay, on another note:
I AM SOOOO SORRY you have to go through a colonoscopy. Oh, that's tough. In other words, be well.

Not to gross you out and no, I don't need to self promote, but you have to read The Poop Diaries.

Well you can breathe easy knowing your snotty abdomen looked just as the technician expected. We'll see about that colon of yours.

hey all: Thanks for tha support, however, thankfully, I got my up the bum-a-scope canceled for a few months, due to the fact that other tests, namely my lovely ultrasound done on my "solid" belly, turned up nothing, and my blood test was good. So, there's no urgency, only an eventual necessity. Dang, no colon-ial tales!

Sounds like you had the same technician I had for my echocardiogram--and she responded similarly when I made my smart-mouthed observations.

"Oooo... look! It's a boy!"

"That's your aorta, wingnut."

Come see the 2nd Annual Mullet Contest over at my blog!