Next Time You Have an Endoscopy...

Yesterday, I had a procedure done called an endoscopy. The laymen's term for that is "upper GI". If it still doesn't make any sense to you, it didn't make any sense to me either when I first heard the term. They put a tube down your throat and examine your stomach, esophagus,
and duodenum. (Don't ask... I'm no doctor!) Anyway, it was a very successful procedure and everything turned out well for me. It's like the colonoscopy I had a while back in that you can't eat anything for twelve or more hours before you have it. It also involves anesthesia and that's some of the best sleep I ever had. I remember them putting a tube in my mouth in a room with drab blue walls. The last thought I remember having was ... this must be how condemned prisoners about to have lethal injection must feel. God, I don't want to die in a drab blue room like this!

He must have heard me. I woke up in the original room I was in sometime later, sans the tube and sans the i.v., with just a bandage on my hand and a cool towel on my head. The nurse told me that everything was just fine... I had a "normal esophagus" and a "normal stomach". Okay, I thought... glad to hear it. The doctor came by and told me that I should cut down on sodas
(haven't drank one since April), drinks that "fizz" (I wonder if that includes an ocassional cold beer?), and watch foods that are "too heavily seasoned". Apparently, this was causing me some
excess heartburn. I suppose I'm at the age where everything I like is bad for me. It seems like that was always the case anyway, even when I was ten.-:)

I kinda felt a little guilty about what I had previously wrote about doctors and how it feels as if they never cure you of anything. However, I don't feel at all bad about what I said about HMOs , insurance companies, and the state of health care in general. I'll let that go, for now. Right now, I'm going to obey my doctors, take (yet another bottle of) pills, and pray that I'll feel a little better.

Just the same, it was nice having a day off from work and getting a little rest. As I was writing this, I was voraciously hungry and waiting for my wife to come home so that we could eat. Notice I said "we"... what I should have written is "so that she could get me something to eat." (Just kidding ladies... don't kill me!) Hopefully, by the time you all are reading this, I'll be sitting at my desk and hard at work. Don't count on it... the hard at work part. However, I will be back at work and feeling well. I feel better already.